


I have seen the future and I’m not going

by haribos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 20th Century, Character Death, Death Eaters, Dragons, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Hogwarts, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Original Character(s), Metamorphmagus, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Marauders, Moderate Violence, Motorbikes, Non-Graphic Violence, Older, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Sirius Black & Sirius Black's sister, Sirius Black's older sister, Sirius Black's sibling, Trying not to put spoilers in the tags, Violence, Witchcraft, lost sibling, ran away from home, secret sibling, sirius black's sister
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2020-10-10 00:30:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20519006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haribos/pseuds/haribos
Summary: The life story of Aquarius Faye Black.Pureblooded wizarding families in mid 20th century Great Britain certainly did not tolerate any variety of signs which could indicate against whatever type of deviation from proper pureblood tradition. So please, put imaginations at use to describe a scenario, where a little metamorphmagus child is born under the roof of such close-minded people.The name, which was given to this anomaly, was Aquarius Faye Black, and one could say, that her days in the house she was given birth to, were undoubtedly doomed from the start.Follow her enthralling story filled to the brim with dragons, criminal activity, prejudice and obviously, a great deal of partying.NOTE:This story is about Sirius Black's sister; he will feature, just not as often as our main character Aquarius.Also, my updating can be a tad irregular, however your loyalty would be greatly loved. if you have any ideas about the future of Aquarius, please speak up!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey to all readers, who deemed this story worth starting; I salute you.
> 
> A lot of characters in this story are mine, but all of the canonical ones obviously aren't. 
> 
> So please, you can begin pursuing the life of Aquarius Faye Black. 
> 
> Enjoy, and please leave comments and reviews; that would be great and super helpful in the future.

** _17th May 1957, Number 10 Grimmauld Place, London._ **

Pureblooded wizarding families in 20th century Great Britain certainly did not tolerate any variety of signs which could indicate against any type of deviation from proper pureblood tradition. One could easily guess that these traditions undeniably included every sort of usual prejudice there ever was since the medieval times. Naturally, these involved extreme hatred towards mundane folk; magical creatures; and all sorts of abnormalities among wizards and witches themselves, such as being unfortunate enough to be elementals, werewolves, metamorphmaguses and so on.

However, take, for example, The Black family - this discrimination is multiplied by a hundred times, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. So please, put imaginations at use to describe a scenario, where a little metamorphmagus child is born under the roof of such close-minded people.  
It’s not pretty, is it?  
An innocent, defenceless baby being condemned to a life of misery from the first moment its parents took their first look at it.  
And why? Because instead of the apparently perfect image of a proper Black family’s baby with a tuft of dark hair, uncommonly pale skin and grey eyes; they were met with a head full of bright turquoise hair and purple eyes.

The name, which was given to this anomaly, was Aquarius Faye Black, and one could say, that her days in the house she was given birth to, were undoubtedly doomed from the start.

They definitely weren’t wrong… judging by the fact that the 1957 newest Black turned out to be, by their opinion, a complete disgrace and abomination to the family name, and most of all, to her parents - Walburga and Orion Black.

In other words, she was a metamorphmagus.

** _3rd November 1959, Number 10 Grimmauld Place, London._ **

“Orion! Force her forsaken mouth shut or I do not know what I shall do to her!”

“Certainly, Walburga. Are you comfortable?”

Orion Black, son of the Head of the Black family, did not usually humour being ordered around his own house in this manner, but today was a special occasion. See, today, the household was blessed with a beautiful, proper baby boy, with the most pleasingly dark hair, light skin, and grey eyes. Today, his wife bore the future heir for the Black fortune - Sirius Orion Black.  
The abomination metamorphmagus was not inclusive to the hefty share of inheritance she, under ordinary circumstances, would have been subject to. Dirty blood was not acceptable within the walls of his house, and his vault would definitely not suffer from its presence like Grimmauld Place had, on that fateful mid May night.  
Of course, the public had no knowledge of this. Every soul outside of this residence knew only of the terrible sickness the eldest Black daughter so unfortunately fell victim to from birth; and therefore, society had only seen Aquarius once; when she was 18 months old, at a Ball everyone in their family was obliged to go to. She was treated as every creature should be; contained in harsh conditions, as to train her to behave under his, and Walburga’s command.  
The place of her containment was the exact destination Orion was making his way towards at this very moment, since the two year old in question was failing to obey strict instructions.  
She was crying. Bawling, in fact.  
Something that disgusted Orion utterly.

As he reached up to unlock the dungeon’s door, he was met with a scene which disgusted him even more so. In the corner, sat a lump of bright indigo hair, the length growing by the second. And the sound she was radiating sent shivers down Orion’s spine. At the back of his head, he acknowledged the fact that crying was something all toddlers were prone to doing, but ignored it all the same. In addition, he also knew that when young, untrained metamorphmaguses were happening to be experiencing a strong sense of emotion, they tended to let their control waver. Inconveniently, he had been compelled to pick up a book or two about said topic to preserve their family’s reputation.  
Consequently, Orion was training her to maintain her impure abilities within herself, and keep a dark haired hairstyle of brown locks, porcelain skill, and naturally coloured eyes for as long as possible.

He took out his wand and waved it in the strict direction of the child.

“Silencio.”

Abruptly, the frustratingly loud sound was cut off, causing a petite, pale face to show from beneath the waterfall of hair. The hair growth stopped too, and realising who had just entered, Aquarius’s appearance completely transformed. From a striking gold, her tearful eyes shifted to a fearful pale yellow; her exceedingly long blue hair immediately shrunk to a messy, white bob cut. From being sprawled out on the floor, her posture reduced itself to almost nothing, as if awaiting a blow.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Ferrum!” Orion’s wand sliced the air again, and the girl felt the air being knocked out of her lungs as an invisible force clashed her frail body against the stone wall. She tried crying out, but no sound could come out. Streams of tears began flowing out of her now purple eyes more strongly than before.

She flinched violently as Orion’s face came to level with hers with a dark expression. What she heard next came out in a low, menacing voice, which caused her to push herself into the corner even more.

“Listen very carefully, grotesque, animalistic creature. I shall tolerate no more of your incomprehensible, repugnant howling in my house, do you understand?” His voice was so low that it could almost be described as a growl. “Your mother just gave birth to your brother, and you dare disrespect them in this manner? Turn your appearance into its natural form!” With that, he got a hold of her chin and jerked it upwards so that her eyes had no other choice but to look straight up at him.

Aquarius began shaking intensely in obvious panic and fear, but scrunched her eyes up nonetheless, and focused on imagining dark hair and grey eyes; like her father had so assuredly taught her. When nothing happened, sharp pain exploded on her cheek as Orion’s firm hand collided with her skin. This time, the pain only made her try harder.  
Finally, when she opened her eyes, she found herself having shoulder length black curls framing her face, long curly dark lashes and grey eyes.  
In other words, she looked like the perfect Black daughter the family had so desperately wished to have instead of, well, her.

Following the dark figure of her father out of the door with her stare, all Aquarius could think about was the word ‘brother’. She wondered what it was like to have a brother. She wondered what her brother looked like. Was he like her? She doubted it; otherwise her father wouldn’t have told her to respect him.  
Aquarius did not know a lot of the words her father shouted or growled at her. She knew the important ones; like ‘respect’, ‘pureblood’, ‘howling’, ‘disgrace’, ‘abomination’ and e.t.c. Although she had difficulty pronouncing that last one, so for obvious reasons, she avoided saying it in front of anyone to try and prevent any sorts of unnecessary punishment by her parents’ hand. The little girl never knew of any life outside the walls of Grimmauld Place; she was rarely even let out of this gloomy cell to wander around other dusty dark corners of the house. Her meals were always scheduled strictly every day; being brought to her by their house elf Kreacher. Kreacher was rather frightening at times, but as far as Aquarius was concerned, the elf seemed to be the only one capable of expressing even the slightest bit of courtesy to her. In fact, he was the reason she even knew her own name.  
And Kreacher himself had decided to turn a blind eye on ‘Young Mistress Aquarius’s’ apparent monstrosity and filthy blood with similar reason behind it. As reluctant he could ever be to admit such weakness, the house elf was not able to deny the fact that if he fancied any sort of proper, insult-less interaction with anyone- his only choice was to attempt and seek common grounds with the toddler. Since Walburga had discovered she was pregnant with a son, the parents had abandoned even the most minuscule former jobs in Aquarius’s favour, leaving Kreacher with the order to manage only the most necessary obligations towards the care for the little 2 year old. This included feeding, cleaning and the basics of teaching. Kreacher, however, chose to overstep the line a bit and start teaching her to form simple phrases and words; since no one else would probably ever do so, in the near future.  
Soon enough, the elf could finally admit that he had gotten quite fond of the little girl, along with her metamorphmagus abilities too. It was fun to watch as her appearance gradually transform according to what emotion she was feeling, and how strongly she was doing so. For example, he had already memorised the fact that when she was trying really hard at pronouncing some sort of word, her hair turned a violet-ish lilac colour with matching eyes. Her natural form, however, always stayed the same: turquoise hair and purple eyes.

Turquoise hair and purple eyes.

Walburga detested her daughter with all the might she could ever muster within herself. She hated her so much that the mere sight of her turquoise hair angered her to no end. Even the plain fact that she was a girl managed to rise a frustrating feeling inside. The reason? Her husband Orion’s older brother Cygnus’s wife bore three girls, and if she failed to produce a male heir, then the fortune would pass down to Cygnus’s eldest daughter. No matter how fond Walburga was of small eight year old Bellatrix, she would do whatever possible to snatch the Black Head title away from her hands. This included keeping having children until she got a son. Obviously, Aquarius was not fit under those plans in any way. Thankfully, she did not have to wait long before dear Sirius was born. As long as Cygnus did not have anymore male children, the title stayed along her and Orion’s side of the family.  
One could say that Walburga’s mind was only capable of thinking about a limited amount of things. These things included pure blood, money, title, disgusting muggles, her flawless son and disgraceful daughter. That was about it.

** _31st December 1960, Number 10 Grimmauld Place, London._ **

Therefore, Walburga wasn’t at all pleased when the whole of her family was invited to a New Year’s Ball at the Malfoy Mansion. Denying was completely out of the question, since that would almost definitely affect their family’s image. Accepting, however, would force them to bring Aquarius along with them.  
So here she was, lounging in the black velvet love seat beside the fireplace with her son in her arms. If anyone had asked her what had put her in such a forlorn mood, she would most certainly enter an exceedingly loud tantrum about her unfortunate self and despicable daughter. Said tantrum would also most definitely cause dear Sirius to start bawling, which would increase the chaotic mess in the household because that would cause Aquarius to panic and lose control of her abilities. Now this would then make Orion mad, so long story short, that is all a scenario, which no one would want to see.

Basically, don’t send Walburga off the edge.

At this very moment, she was waiting very patiently for her husband to finish teaching Aquarius to keep her proper appearance. If she was honest, the girl was making progress in her ability to control her appearances… but then she would still rather leave her at Grimmauld Place while the rest of the family attended the Ball. Sadly, this was not an option. Today would be the second time Aquarius Faye Black would leave the house in all her three years and there was no turning back. Therefore, since the Malfoy crested owl landed on the windowsill of the bedroom carrying an invitation letter, Orion had been intensely training his daughter to keep her black hair and grey eyes for the longest amount of time possible. And ‘intensely’ meant: with a large variety of offensive and often dark curses being brought into the mix. Of course, that last month had been utter hell for the little girl. Never had she experienced so much pain in the span of such a short amount of time.

“Finally! I had begun to assume that you both had been abducted by Satan himself!” The words glided put of Walburga’s mouth as she saw her husband and daughter coming in through the large oak doors of the room.

Aquarius was dressed in a dark purple robe made out of thick, darkly patterned material, which came down to the floor. But most importantly, her glossy black curls were plaited back into a neat French braid down her back. Her wide eyes were a light grey; and to say the least- she looked like the perfect Black 3 year old.  
Walburga however did not betray any emotion as she gracefully stood up and walked up to the frail child.

“Your disgraceful presence inside the Malfoy Mansion walls is a wretched insult to both your family and theirs. If you dare to even think about losing control of your currently competent demeanour, then your filthy eyes shall never see anything beyond the cold stone of your cell. You shall not say a word to anyone. As far as you are concerned, you have just recovered from a terrible sickness. I want silence. Silence.”

Her cold, monotone hissing voice and flashing eyes made Aquarius feel such tremor that she nearly lost control, but instead started trembling. Although her father was also limitlessly frightening, and she was most often victim of his specific wand, she was most afraid of her mother. She didn’t see her much, but when she did, the nightmares would not cease for a very long time.  
Over the year since Sirius was born, she did not know what to think of him. For the first time in 2 years, she felt some things apart from fear, and she did not understand what they were. Little did the young girl know, one of them was called jealousy. All Aquarius knew was that she did not like it at all. She indubitably disliked the fact that someone was getting an exception to the torture she was almost regularly put under. However, she did not get to see him very often, but when it did happen, she couldn’t help but smile at the innocent giggles and gurgles her brother made. Once, her father had left the cell door open and she had snuck out in the middle of the night to wander around the house. She had gone into her favourite room; the room where the windows were biggest to look out into the stars. However this time, she had been met with a surprise. Instead of the dusty boxes and furniture which were there when she was here last, the room was clean, spacious and had a cradle in the middle of it. Curiosity getting the better of her, she couldn’t help but run up to it and look inside. The sight of a peacefully sleeping baby had made her feel even more curious. She had never seen him before, even though he had been born a couple of months ago. As her hair changed from a wavy turquoise to a floaty, short baby pink, the baby suddenly opened his big grey eyes. Aquarius turned afraid and her hair immediately changed to a spiky dark blue. However, to her much surprise, the baby began smiling and reaching his short chubby hands towards her. The girl tilted her head to the side and her hair again changed to a wavy turquoise. Sirius started gurgling and giggling again.  
And so, was how Aquarius Faye Black first smiled for real.  
Since that event, she tried to attempt and sneak more often to visit him and change the colour of her hair deliberately. More often than not, it did not work and she ended up turning into something completely different than what she intended, but it made her brother laugh so it was okay.

So now, on the 31st December 1960, when it was as if Sirius did not recognise her with a neat black plait, she felt a pang of pain in her chest. Her father tugged her behind him as he made his way to the fireplace along with the rest of the family. The fireplace was very much larger than the average fireplace, so all four people could fit inside it at the same time.

“Malfoy Mansion!” With a handful of silvery dust, she was being sucked into a tube, the air being knocked out of her.

After a second or two, they reappeared in a fireplace pretty much the same size as the one they came from, but of a different decor.

“Welcome, Lord and Lady Black.”

A tall, straight-backed woman wearing a long black gown and with long blonde hair greeted them, standing next to the doorway with a couple of other people. She gave them a straight lipped, brief nod and gestured for the other people to follow her in introduction.

Agilely stepping out of the fireplace, her two parents nodded back.

“Ah, Lady Malfoy, Lady Carrow, Lord Burke, Lord Rashley.”

With a rough and barely noticeable flick of his hand, Orion pushed Aquarius out of the fireplace and onto the marble floor of the room. Suddenly, a collective gasp blanketed the place.

“Is that Aquarius Faye Black?”

“We sent out an invitation for the whole family in hopes we would get the chance to get a glimpse of her!…”

“My Merlin, I haven’t seen her for 2 whole years!”

“She’s a beautiful little thing- look at those big eyes!’

“Eurydice, immediately inform my husband Aquarius Black is here. Yes, the one who’s been sick since birth…”

“Oh that poor thing, she looks so frail. The disease really got the better of her, didn’t it?”

Hah, they had no idea.

As far as she remembered, Aquarius had never been surrounded by so many different people at once. In fact, the only people she remembered ever seeing was her mother, her father and brother.  
Never could she have ever anticipated being confronted by so many people. People with giant, onerous grins, oversized teeth, bulging eyes and white balding heads. People with frighteningly tight corsets, oversized frocks, weirdly shaped headpieces and way too much make up. Questions, statements, cheek pinching. The noise, the mass of sounds mushing together to make a suffocating feeling in her chest and an unstoppable buzz in her head.

“Where have you been the last 2 years?”

Mouth shut, Aquarius.

“Such a fair young lady like you would do a fine match for my 6 year old!”

Mouth shut, Aquarius.

“What was the mysterious sickness you suffered from, Aquarius?”

Mouth shut, Aquarius.

“My wife and I are ever so glad you are well.”

Mouth shut Aquarius.

“When is your birthday, Aquarius?”

What’s a birthday?… Mouth shut, Aquarius.

“My name is Cygnus Black. My daughters would so like to meet their cousin…”

…Black? Mouth shut, Aquarius.

“Your brother Sirius is such a pretty little thing, isn’t he? You look so much alike him! How old is he?”

1 year old… Sirius is very pretty… mysterious sickness… pretty little thing… your wife… ever so glad… birthday…sick since birth… mouth shut… mouth shut… mouth shut… mouth shut… mouth shut…  
SILENCE SILENCE SILENCE!

“Look here, Miss Black, perhaps you wish to play among children your age?”

Her head was spinning, and she could not see clearly. Her mother and father were nowhere in sight. The grand, tremendous hall they were situated in began to blur.  
The life sized marble snake carving decorations on the walls suddenly came alive and charged at her, fangs ready to dig into her skin.

The bearded man in the giant painting on the wall turned his head to pierce his eyes into hers.

The stone horse statue in the corner started threateningly rearing up and viciously grinding its teeth before aggressively galloping towards her.

The glamorous massive crystal chandelier began rocking back and forth ominously.

The charmed multicoloured baubles on the towering green Christmas tree, which developed the outraged faces of her mother and father exploded.

Everything was confusing and painful.

The buzz in her mind began thundering vehemently until all she could hear was a deafening, earsplitting scream… and then nothing.

Silence.

Silence for a single moment.

Next, chaos ensued.

Aquarius’s frail figure collapsed onto the hard stone floor, her pale hands clasped her head and she released an earsplitting scream.

She then lost control.

Her hair escaped the captivity of the plait, and began growing longer by the second in different shades of blue, red and purple. The length reached the floor and continued growing, along with the pitch of her screaming and the horror of the people around her. The indigo blended with the magenta, which changed into a lighter blue, which then transformed into a dark blood red.  
Aquarius herself felt an overwhelming wave of chilling heat as she transformed between appearances. Her skin, eyes and hair changed colour. Her ears turned pointy and then returned to their natural form. She grew a tiny pair of horns before shrinking them back too. Her fingernails turned long and sharp, then began chipping. She felt her forehead touching the cold floor as she kept leaning forward; bony knees digging into the ground.

Then all of the sudden, all noise came to an abrupt stop.

Every single bone in her body was trembling violently.

All that could be seen to the outside eye was a messy multicoloured pile of hair until a petit head with a pair of wide eyes of two different colours slowly arose. One eye was a pure turquoise and the other was dark red.

The room was utterly silent until an enraged shriek pierced the air and everyone saw a livid Walburga making her way towards the child with murder in her eyes. Aquarius began attempting to clumsily scramble in the opposite direction with a look of pure terror, but was unable to escape her mother’s strangling grasp as she was dragged into the fireplace. Next thing she knew, the two were in the familiar middle of the Grimmauld place sitting room. Walburga released her painful grip and let Aquarius sprawl across the carpet.  
The three year old did not dare to look up from the ground, too afraid of the infuriated expression she knew her mother bore.

“You fucking little bitch!” Came the well known screech.

Those specific words, however, Aquarius had never heard before.

“Crucio!”

She didn’t have time to wonder what the meaning of them were before her thoughts were cut off by unimaginable pain everywhere in her body and a haunting scream. Her skin felt like thousands of scorching poison laced blades were slicing it continuously. It was as if the entirety of her skeleton was being crushed into tiny shards of bones. Like all her blood vessels were bursting at the same time, regrowing and repeating.  
Her arms were writhing. Her legs were writhing.  
To Walburga, this scenario continued for a mere glorious thirty seconds, but to Aquarius, it felt like an eternity of torture.  
And Walburga would have gladly continued the duration of this curse had Orion not arrived in the fireplace with Sirius in his arms and not disarmed her.

Aquarius did not know how long she had lied there for, but it had been a long time before Kreacher came and took her to the kitchen, where he began frantically attending to her. Say what you will, but thirty seconds under the cruciatus curse was not something every three year old could survive. Not taking into account that said three year old had an unstable immune system and an especially delicate physique. While the elf fussed around the table she was lying on, she could not move. Everything ached and was paralysed at the same time. She stared at the blurry image of the corridor at the end of which she saw a big door. A door which she fantasised about almost every day. The door which lead to freedom. If she was honest, however, she had only seen it once before in her life. Her hair was a light purple and dark turquoise, and reached her shoulders in wavy locks. She couldn’t feel herself breathing. She couldn’t feel anything except for the ache.

The ache.

Then Kreacher shoved something down her throat and she began coughing, before getting a staggering feeling of fatigue and wish to shut her eyes once and for all.

A few hours later.

She woke with the sound of shouting in the next room. Thankfully, she was able to swing her legs over the edge of the table, but not without a considerable amount of pain. The ache, however was mostly gone. She wondered if that was because of the liquid that Kreacher had forced her to drink just before she fell asleep.

She could barely make out the words that were being shrieked on the other side of the wall, but what she could make out was:

“…can’t believe… irresponsible… dangerous…you could have…. dead!”

She guessed that was her father.

“Abominable… Sirius… filthy blood… deserved to be… better off… the freak!”

She guessed that was her mother.

The screaming continued, but Aquarius paid no attention to it anymore. She was not afraid. She thought she had gone through the worst.

These thoughts phrased themselves in the language that a three year old could comprehend.

Suddenly, her eye caught something shiny in the corner of the kitchen, on the floor. Sliding off the table and wincing under the pain she felt in her ankles, she still made her way to the mysterious glittering object. Picking it up, she realised it was a ring. It was a thin steel band with a small black gem in the middle of two perfectly round pearls. She felt entranced with something so pretty and glittery so she put it in the pocket of her dress.  
Suddenly, she came to face with the dark corridor. The dark corridor at the end of which there was the door. The door. Not just any door.  
Taking her first step onto the floorboards of the corridor, she heard a sharp creak resonating along it and filling up with horror that her parents might have heard, she ran back into the kitchen and hid behind a chair.  
The screaming, however did not cease. That meant her mother and father had not heard the sound. This began a series of questions in the girl’s mind. What level of sound would they not hear before they noticed?  
She decided to try her chances.

Just to see. Just to get a glimpse. Just to at least get a peak of the sky, the trees, the people.

Clutching the newfound ring in her hand inside her pocket, she took off waddling along the corridor, dreading every creak that echoed until she finally found herself with the door right in front of her face. Freezing on the spot to make sure her parents hadn’t heard, she examined the door in great detail. Not that it was a particularly special door. Just that it was the first time she had ever been this near it.

She was so close to the outside world!

Aquarius reached her hands up to turn the knob, but began panicking when the knob would not budge.

But she was so close!

Suddenly, she got an idea.

“Kreacher!”

There was a pop and a very flustered house elf appeared beside the antique umbrella stand, which she guessed was there for mere decorative reasons.

“Young Mistress Aquarius!” He squeaked. “Kreacher asks what Young Mistress Aquarius is doing?!”

“Open door, please, Kreacher” she asked. Kreacher was probably the only living being except for her brother, who she wasn’t scared of and could speak around.

“Young Mistress Aquarius! Master Lord Black shall hurt Kreacher should Master Lord Black finds out but!”

“What father shan’t know won’t hurt father, please!” Aquarius had learned this saying from her mother. She wasn’t completely sure what it meant, but thought this was a convenient situation to use it.

Kreacher still wasn’t convinced though.

“Kreacher still doesn’t approve of Young Mistress Aquarius’s lack of safety outside!”

Safety? When had she ever been safe?

“Please Kreacher! One peek! Aquarius wants to see once!” But the three year old wasn’t giving up.

Squinting his eyes, the elf resembled the expression of someone in immense pain. Funnily enough, this wasn’t too far off. The decision he was driven to make was not one to be taken lightly. From his point of view.

In spite of all, Kreacher finally established his opinion, although not without some degree of regret.

“Fine!” With a snap of his fingers and a mild electric spark, the knob gradually turned and created a small gap.

Aquarius could not believe her luck. She squeezed her small head into the space between the door and the frame to be met with a beautifully fresh chilly breeze.  
Aquarius let out an unintentional innocent giggle. It felt so beautiful!  
The pearly white half crescent moon shone in the dark starry night, not a cloud in sight, There were no people outside. The only sound she could hear was the slight crunch in the blanket of sparkly white blanket of snow covering the pavement and the bare trees in the garden on the other side of the road.  
And the most peculiar thing, was the fact that Aquarius hadn’t the slightest idea what any of this was. She didn’t know what a road was. Nor snow. Nor the moon. Never had she seen this type of magnificent scenery before in her short, painfully uneventful life.

“Young Mistress Aquarius! Kreacher is called by Master and Mistress Lord and Lady Black! Kreacher asks Young Mistress Aquarius not to go outside!” With a pop and a click, the elf was gone from sight.

Said words, however, Aquarius had not heard at all. She was too entranced by nature’s beauty in front of her. In fact, she was hypnotised to the extent of her hair transforming into a glossy white colour to match the snow around her. Her eyes, however turned a glimmering inky black like the night sky.

Small steps, she told herself.

One small step. Or two. Or maybe even three small steps forward into the frighteningly freezing but surprisingly pleasant mixture called snow.  
With her tiny feet wearing nothing but thin lacy stockings, they would rather sooner than later get frost bite… but obviously Aquarius did not know that.

Promptly, the short white haired girl found herself in the middle of the frosted garden, which happened to be situated right opposite the porch of dear Grimmauld Place. Suddenly, tiny flakes of snow began twirling from the dark sky above. Looking up, Aquarius began twirling herself. Jumping up and down, all cold and pain seemed to forget itself as she lost herself in the snow which was falling everywhere. Her hair again turned a wavy long dark turquoise, her eyes matching in colour. Her eyelashes caught numerous snowflakes…  
And to say the least, Aquarius had never felt more free.

Heaven did not last long, though.

All of the sudden, she felt a sharp pain in her chest. It did not pause to spread throughout her body until it covered every cell on her skin.

The girl screamed through the silence of New Year’s Eve , slicing the air like the feeling of a dozen razors slashing without avail.

Fortunately, the agony did not last for that much time.

Before long, darkness clouded Aquarius’s vision and all went black.

She didn’t hear the bells tolling the arrival of 1961.


	2. Chapter 2

“Nurse Charleston said tha’ he found her in the Grimmauld Square garden… She looks about two or three…Yeah, all alone… Yeah, tha’ is all she was wearing… Yeah, I know she nearly froze to death…Yeah, the doctor is looking over her righ’ now… Yeah— well no, she ain’t awake yet… Oh my god Vinny, ‘course she’s alive! Yeah, I know her hair is turquoise… well I think it looks pretty cool—she’s lyin’ right in front of me, you moron!.. Why am I so—?! Why am I so cranky? Cuz it’s New Years, that’s wha’. And I ‘ave to do this bullshit shift!.. Yeah okay. Bye now, Vinny… I’m hangin’ up the phone now. Okay, bye… Bye!”

There was ding and a thump.

Those were the first noises Aquarius heard when she stirred awake. A white light blinded her vision as she squinted her eyes open. In the corner of her eye she saw a woman with short orange hair and a long white robe sitting on a chair beside the bed she was lying on.  
A bed.  
Why did that woman have orange hair? Maybe she was a metamorphmagus like she was! Orange was such an unnatural colour; the only hair colour she had ever seen was yellow, black, grey and brown.  
Where was she?  
The room had four white walls with peeling paint. The bed stood right in the middle of a grey tiled floor. The only other object in the room was a big red cupboard on the opposite side of the room.

“Oh sweetheart! Yer awake! Are you feelin’ okay?” Aquarius held her breath as the orange-haired woman stood up from her seat and made her way towards the bed.

“Oh no, don’t be scared, darlin’! Yer safe, sweetheart… Now why don’t you tell us yer name, huh? We can get ye back to them as fast as possible!”

With the mention of her parents, the three year old began trembling, and her eyes widened in horror. She began shaking her head in denial.

“No no, don’t worry, I’m sure yer safe, honey. Yer in St Mary’s Hospital at the moment. My name is Nurse Stevens, what’s yer name?”

With that, the previous pain all over her body started again. Tearing up, her hair began changing colour rapidly and she clumped up in a ball.

Why her?

With all her might, the girl wished to be anywhere where the pain would stop. Anywhere but here with the strange lady and the weirdly creepy white walls. Anywhere but here and her house.

And with that, a miracle happened.

With a pop, she felt herself being torn apart and put together again. She squeezed her eyes together, but even that didn’t make the multicoloured blotches disappear.

The next moment, it all stopped.

She felt an icy breeze sting her cheeks and slice through her skin painfully. She wouldn’t cry. Crying wouldn’t do her any good. She opened her eyes and saw herself crouching in an alleyway made of dark stone and icicles.

The cold overtook all her senses momentarily, the snow she was sitting on soaking through all her clothes and reaching her bare skin. Shivering, Rory anxiously began twisting her body around frantically, and before blacking out for the hundredth time today, she caught sight of a sign.

A sign she would have been able to read, if she was taught how to.

A sign which said ‘Knock-turn Alley pawnbrokers’.

** _23rd June 1968, ‘in a secret place called ‘The Neo’ somewhere in Knockturn Alley, London._ **

“Cass! Cass! Cassie-e!” The well known voice echoed through the place loudly.

Peels of laughter escaped the mouth of an eleven year old girl running along a narrow, but bright cobblestone alleyway. Big pieces of patterned cloth were stretched out above her to form a kind of roof from the sun’s scorching June rays. The oversized, red sun-bleached t-shirt she had carelessly tucked into a pair of denim overalls was now swaying in the breeze and letting absolutely everyone know of her current excitement. Long, turquoise wavy hair danced behind her, pulsating with different shades.  
Where was she rushing with such determination?  
Seemingly, her thoughts were most definitely overly preoccupied when she collided with a tall young-looking woman with tied back, straight blonde hair.

Gasping for air, the girl barely glanced at the woman before calling a quick sorry, shooting a wide, unabashed smile at her and returning to her previous route.

The woman, however, did not avert her gaze from the girl until she turned a corner and disappeared out of sight. Curiously, she turned to the man she was with, and frowned slightly.

“Sorry about that. I’ve told her so many times to be more aware of her surroundings, but unfortunately, she just can’t keep her mind around it for more than two seconds.” The man spoke with a barely noticeable curve upwards at the edges of his lips.

The woman ignored what he said and asked with a meagre Russian tint.

“What’s her name? I feel like I recognise her…”

The man adopted a blank look that was rather hard to read.

“That is Rory Frederics. You might have seen her around Diagon Alley before.”

“No, no, Neo. Not her face… There’s just something familiar about her hair…”

The man sighed darkly, before hesitating.

“I think this is a conversation better suited in my office, Xena. And call me Jackson. We have known each other for a rather large number of years now. You might as well call me by something other than my official name.”

Xena chuckled.

“You mean your official gang leader name? But tradition is tradition, is it not? I thought you liked everyone calling you that.” She teased.

“No, you don’t understand. ‘The Neo’ is the name of our gang. Our company, if you please. The initiator of it, back in 1800, was called Neo Samuels. He called the gang ‘The Neo’. Then, he thought it would be funny to name his son Neo Samuels Junior, who inherited the leader title. Who then gave leadership to his son, who he also called Neo. This continued up to the point when the gang decided to stop their monarchic ways and start a kind of democracy. They elected every leader, but tradition is tradition. Every time the leader is elected, they are called ‘The Neo’, instead if their real name.  
To the outside word, I am ‘The Neo’. To my gang and friends, I’m Jackson Axel.” Jackson explained, leaving the stone floor and climbing a wooden staircase, which led to a small terrace on the second floor.

Following him, Xena looked plain amused.

“That sounds rather stupid.”

Jackson just shrugged and pulled at the collar of his leather jacket. Never did he take it off, not even in the summer.

“Tradition is tradition, as you said.” Opening a wooden door, he lead her into his office. “And I try not to pay much attention to my name or image. It’s not like we’re that big of a company. It’s not that well known. We sell self-invented magical duelling and self-defence products to the wizarding community. There are millions more like us.” He waved his wand and said an incantation, which caused a jug of water to fly onto his desk, along with two metal cups. “We can barely afford to live through the year! Last winter, for example, we had to ration our food! There’s nothing special here!”

“Yes, well. You might say that, but how many other companies do you know that are situated in a part of the city, which is usually viewed as extremely dark and ominous? In Knockturn Alley? Especially one, which is so well hidden, that basically no one outside of the gang knows where it is?” Xena scoffed. “You need to use blood magic to enter this place! I’ve seen it! You sliced your own hand and put it on the wall to open an invisible doorway inside a giant stone wall!”

Jackson just watched the jug pour its water into the cups. Xena continued talking.

“Listen, ‘The Neo’ is something unique. Like you said, you’re a gang. You’re a family. You’re not just a company. Everyone here has basically grown up with each other. You all live right here in the headquarters. All of you know each other like no-one else does.” She leaned back in her chair. “And everyone on the outside knows it too. When people hear ‘The Neo’, they think of a gang. They think of a group of people who would defend each other till the very last breath. Because that’s what happened to Ruby, didn’t it? And the others… It was in the newspapers—”

She was abruptly cut off.

“Don’t—” Jackson put a hand through his whitening, brown hair. He scrunched his eyes up. “… don’t speak of her.”

Xena leaned forward.

“Jackson… you have to heal. It’s been ten years. That other gang was your enemy. Yes, they attacked this place. Yes, they did it because you provoked them. Yes, it was stupid. But she died protecting you. Get over it. You’re forty five.” She crossed her legs. “We also have this conversation every time we meet. I’ve come all the way from Moscow to see you. I’m your niece, for goodness sake. Now tell me about this Rory Frederics girl.”

The man didn’t look at all pleased with the twenty-something woman in front of him, but continued nevertheless.

“It’s a rather saddening story. Rory Frederics isn’t her real name. It’s only the name she grew up with. Her real name is Aquarius Faye Black. Rory’s short for Aquarius—”

“Wait.” Xena interrupted. “Black? The Black?”

“Yes.” He continued patiently. “The Black. Now let me finish. “The short story, is that one of our self-defence product designers- John Arden, found her unconscious and alone in one of the corners near Knockturn Alley’s pawnbrokers in January. She was three at the time. She had nearly frozen to death by that point, so he decided to bring her in so that our healer Harley Frederics could tend to her, before we could identify who she was and send her back home. However, when Harley ran a few diagnostics, she was horrified at what she found. Rory was suffering from the aftereffects of the cruciatus curse. Normally, a fully grown adult would have recovered from such a long period of time under the curse in about a week, with no lasting side effects. However, since she was three, and seemingly severely underfed and fragile, it took her a good 2 months before she fully healed. Worried, Harley performed occlumency on her and found out who she was. The eldest daughter of The Black family- Aquarius Black. She also found out about her home situation, including about how she was tortured throughout her whole life by her parents for being a metamorphmagus. Therefore, she decided not to give her back and raise her with the gang, as her own daughter. And I’m glad she did.”

Shocked into silence, Xena gaped at the newfound information.

Jackson took a deep breath and murmured.

“Thus is the life of a shit-prejudiced, pureblooded British family.”

Finally, the woman managed to regain her ability to speak.

“But… but how come no one has ever heard of her? The eldest daughter of the Black family going missing should have been a rather big deal, no? I mean, I’ve never even heard of her mere birth!”

“Well, firstly, she wasn’t that well-known from the start. We think that her parents made up this story to feed to the public, about how she was born really sick to give an excuse for never letting anybody see her. The only people who knew she even existed were the pureblooded families. I think there was a kind of New Year’s ball, to which all the pureblooded families were invited to. She lost control, and showed everyone there of her abilities. Then, after she went missing, the Head of the Black family threatened everyone else to never speak of her, or that situation again. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Walburga and Orion Black only have two sons- Sirius and Regulus Black.”

“That’s— that’s terrible!”

Jackson just stared.

“I know. Most of the people here know even the details of her story. And now you, I guess.”

They sat in silence for a few moments.

“How old is she?”

“Eleven.”

Xena’s eyes widened.

“Oh? Has she gotten her Hogwarts letter yet?”

Jackson’s eyes brightened a little and he smiled.

“Yes.”

_ **Same time, Same place. Just a couple of metres away.** _

The first thing Cassidy D’agrel saw the moment his bedroom door swung open was a a pulsating mane of turquoise hair and a blur of his best friend. All air knocked out from within his lungs, his whole body got propelled on top of his bed, and he soon found himself lying alongside the small figure of a girl severely out of breath.

“Rory, what—“

“Cass.” She interrupted heatedly, sitting up crosslegged on the cashmere, tartan blanket, which was now all scrunched up from her movements. “I got my Hogwarts letter! What about you—?”

Rory didn’t really know what she expected Cass’s reaction to be, but whatever this was, she didn’t like it. The auburn mop of bangs covered the expression of his eyes, but she got the feeling that it wasn’t very positive. He lay unmoving on the bed until bringing his hands to his face and running them over it.

“Cass… maybe the owl just got stuck somewhere. They don’t all have to arrive at the same time…” the girl put her hands on his shoulders comfortingly.

Finally, Cass sat up, swung his legs outwards, and bit his lip.

“Argh, this is so unfair!” He shouted. “I can’t even speak French!”

Rory fiddled with the ring hanging from her neck on a thin chain before burying her hands inside her pockets. Cass did not cease to stare at the wall.

“I can’t even speak French, and now I need to go to a French boarding school somewhere in France.”

“Listen, it might not even be that bad! I mean, imagine that! We’ve always dreamt of visiting France! Now you’re going to school there, you know. I mean, Beaux-beau— what is it called again?”

“Beauxbatons.”

“Yeah, Beauxbatons.” She continued, swaying her arms around in a seemingly elegant manner. “You got its acceptance letter a few days ago, right? Yeah, you showed me it! It was so… uh… such a nice blue colour!Maybe you not getting your Hogwarts letter is a good thing! You know… tres bien!”

Cass turned to face her and leaned back towards the small cupboard.

“Yes, maybe we’ve always dreamt of going to France, but we’ve always dreamt of going to Hogwarts together too! And that’s never going to happen now!” He said. “Look at it from my point of view. I’ve been raised in Britain, in a British gang, with a British you, dreaming of going to a British school. Now I can’t go to that British school just because I’m French, and apparently my parents enrolled me in a French school when I was a baby, taking away that opportunity from me.”

He paused as Rory stared at him.

“I hate that my parents were French.” He stated firmly. “I don’t even remember them, and I have to serve the victim of their nationalities.”

Rory snorted.

“Woah, okay then drama-boy, slow down. Your parents might have been French, but they might’ve been nice! Like your Uncle Mathieu says they were. They wouldn’t have left you here, if they hadn’t… erm… passed.”

“Yeah, yeah I know.”

Suddenly, Rory dug her hand into one of her front pockets and took out two half-squished pastry buns and chucked one at him.

“Here, I almost forgot.” She said in between bites. “I stole these from the kitchen. Javier made tonnes. There’s no way he could notice two gone!”

Cass sent a playfully judging, but exasperated glance in her direction.

“You can’t steal, Rory. It’s not nice! And especially after that prank we pulled on him last week—”

“Merlin, Cass, just eat it already! You know you want it!” The girl laughed. “And, do you mean the prank we pulled on him last week? You aided and abetted! You can’t deny it was hilarious, though.”

He rolled his eyes, but took a bite nevertheless. These were his favourite and Rory knew it. Besides, it was great comfort food.  
His and Rory’s relationship was rather funny. Being the only two children in the whole gang, it was inevitable for them to become best friends after eight years of living in the same place. Both of them were eleven years old, but their personalities were completely different from each other. They say opposites attract, and he guessed they aren’t at all wrong… Rory’s pure morale was of a troublemaker. She brought chaotic pranks and confetti in her wake wherever she shoved her nose… and her nose knew no boundaries. The skill she had at getting herself out of tricky situations was also remarkable. Lying was definitely something of her forte, and she never let that finesse go to waste.  
Her metamorphic skills were hilarious, and she wasn’t at all afraid to use them. She even got herself a small-paying job at Zonko’s by acting as a clown and entertaining the customers by changing her appearance into amusing different things. Every once in a while, a crowd of mostly children would form around her little stage and just watch her play around with her acting. Rory was a very eccentric and risk-taking soul, and no one could ever do anything to change that.  
He himself, however, wasn’t exactly shy… but of a more calm and careful nature. Sure, under Rory’s influence, he pulled a few pranks with her from time to time… and even found himself rather enjoying himself. He though, drastically unlike Rory, was a perfectionist. Everything concerning him had to be constantly neat and right and on time.  
Cass also prided himself in his knowledge of magical engineering. His Uncle Mathieu, who he grew up with, was ‘Head of ‘The Neo’ Magical duelling product engineering’; which meant he spent his early childhood years in the workshop, surrounded by unique spell books and tools. One could say, that for an eleven year old, he was quite the expert. His quick wit and intelligence often came to use in the pranks they pulled on annoying witches and wizards they met.

Suddenly catching a glimpse of the clock, Cass jumped up and attempted to pull Rory off the bed; which only resulted in her confusedly landing in a heap on the floor upside down, and choking on her bun.

“Rors! We’re late to ‘Dragon’s Lodge!’ We promised to be there at ten!” He yelled.

Rory’s previously long, dark- ish turquoise hair melted into a waterfall of sunset oranges, as she tried to sweep it from her now amber eyes. Wobbling up onto her feet, she murmured.

“It’s only 5 minutes to, Cass, calm your socks. We’re not even riding today. It’s only helping with the cleaning and stuff.”

Cass sent another glance towards her and raised and eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, if we were riding, then you’d force me to be there with you ten minutes early. You just don’t like cleaning.”

Rory waved her arms around, trying to accentuate her state of confusion. She tended to do that a lot.

“Well obviously.” She replied, pulling at her hair. “No one likes cleaning, Cass. No-one! Only Cass likes cleaning. Because apparently, it’s fun! No! It isn’t! Riding them is fun!”

Cass rolled his eyes at his best friend’s antics.

You see, in one of the small, secondary alleyways of Diagon Alley, a couple of years ago, the two had found a small shop. It was called ‘Dragon’s Lodge’, and at first glance, it was nothing particularly special- just another one of those small shops, which normally sell antiquities or useless little objects that nobody ever bought. Or the kind about which people normally wonder how it hadn’t gone bankrupt yet.  
They went in, and made friends with the shopkeeper, whose name was Quinn Kelly. Afterwards, they found out that she was friends with their ‘Neo’, Jackson Axel. Long story short, they began visiting almost every day after realising that Quinn and her brother owned a small dragon reserve up in Wales.  
At first, after a great deal of convincing, both Quinn and Jackson finally agreed on letting Rory and Cass go swing by it and get a peak on the dragons themselves… but only under strict supervision. However, the eight year olds got so entranced by the creatures that they couldn’t stop pestering the adults to let them visit more often. Soon, the children were there so frequently, that they were stopped being seen as guests by the workers and residers of the reserve, but as ones of their own. Things didn’t stop there. They began looking after the dragons- feeding them and cleaning them, until they were finally allowed to be taught to ride them on their 10th birthdays.  
It was the most exhilarating and wonderful thing they had ever done in their lives, and now they took frequent riding classes in Wales every week.  
Today, however, was not one of those days… and they were expected to be at Diagon Alley’s ‘Dragon’s Lodge’ shop in five minutes, so they could floo up to Wales to help look after the area with Quinn’s brother- Sawyer.

Arriving at the invisible doorway at the end of a familiar narrow, stone-roofed passageway, Rory tapped the correct pattern of bricks to form a hole in the wall. There was a similar method to opening the main door to Diagon Alley, but in their case, they could only do this to open the door to their ‘den’ as they liked to call it, from the inside. To get in from the outside, the gang members had to prick their finger and smudge their blood on the wall to form the opening.  
Rory didn’t really understand such drastic measures, but apparently Jackson had insisted they install that method ten years ago, when some other gang managed to get through and attack them. She didn’t really know the details.

“Hey Rory, do you want to grab your bag before we go, so we can get your Hogwarts supplies on the way back?” Cass asked before they could pass through the hatch.

“Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought about that,” Rory exclaimed excitedly. “Lemme go and get it, I’ll be just a mo—“

Running back through the passageway, she was back in the small, sunlit pebbled patio, which was the centre of their ‘den’. Ivy was hanging down from the walls, and mini bushes of begonias could be spotted on the window sill flower pots up above. She saw the leathery brown bag next to the workshop door, and swinging it over her shoulder, she spotted Harley Frederics through the workshop window, talking to Cass’s Uncle Mathieu. Knocking softly on the glass to get her attention, she called.

“Hey, Harley! Harls!” The chestnut haired middle aged woman turned her head towards her, features lightening up.

“Oh hey, kiddo,” she replied, smiling.

“Me and Cass are just going to the reserve now, but then we’re going to get me some Hogwarts supplies later, okay?” Rory said.

Harley looked thoughtful for a moment while tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Sure, do you have enough money with you? I could find some if you need it—”

“No, no Harls, I have the money which I earned from Zonko’s; I think it should be enough for today, don’t worry,” the girl interrupted abruptly. “It’s okay, mum, really!”

“Alright, mate. Have fun!” She chuckled.

“Bye!”

Harley Frederics had been Rory’s mother figure for almost as long as she could remember. She always introduced herself as Aquarius or Rory Frederics to anyone she met, although she had always known they weren’t actually related and it wasn’t the surname she was given at birth.  
The second the Hogwarts owl flew through her bedroom window, she was devastated to find out that she would ought to go to Hogwarts under the name ‘Aquarius Faye Black’. She didn’t know of the exact details, but it was something about how her birth parents signed her up for Hogwarts the second she showed signs of magic under her real name, and the fees weren’t refundable, either was the name. She was even grateful for the fact that the school fees were already paid, otherwise Harley wouldn’t have been able to pay them. Words couldn’t explain how much she resented it, but she knew it wasn’t that big of a deal at the end of the day. The majority of people would expect her to hold a load of hate towards her birth parents, but in reality, Rory was already past that stage. Well, of course she still held the utmost grudge against them (they had used the cruciatus curse in her when she was merely three years old), but after all, it was just a name.  
Furthermore, she held most of the memories of her birthplace in the gang’s pensieve. It was a very rare piece of magical equipment to get your hands on, but this one had been under ‘The Neo’s’ ownership for decades. Besides, she was one of the only ones to use it. It held most of the unpleasant memories she had, which was basically a whole account of the first three years of her life. The only reason she even kept them, was because she cherished the images of her brother Sirius. Merlin knew what he grew up to become… Rory didn’t even know what to think, really. The only recollection of him that she had in her mind, was three year old her with different coloured hair, standing over a small crib holding a giggling grey-eyed baby. Rory never knew the exact reason why, but that memory always brought her a certain type of joy.  
Another basis as to why she wanted to go to Hogwarts so badly, was because she wanted to find out more about her birth family. If she found out where they lived, she might even be able to sneak up to it and try to het a peak of him. Obviously, she wanted nothing to so with her parents, especially her mother, but fantasies of meeting her brother sent shivers of excitement down her spine. She heard that know, she apparently had another brother called Regulus… who would probably be about seven at that moment, and the possibility of even getting one first glimpse of him filled her up with warmth.  
Not that her current family wasn’t enough- Harley, Cass and everyone else were a better family than she could ever ask for… but no one could blame an eleven year old girl for her curiosity.

‘Dragon’s Lodge’, on closer inspection, was a rather mysterious place. Shop name written in large, maroon cursive letters on a large wooden plank stuck above the full-length curved glass storefront brought a kind of subtle charm to the spot; along with the swung-open narrow dark crimson door on the side. The squeaky, rusted hanging sign that swayed slightly in the breeze with the ‘a’ and two ‘o’s of ‘Dragon’s Lodge’ fallen off, definitely also helped the mystification.

Smiling at the well known moving photo of a flying ‘Western Red-wing dragon’ in the window, along with a couple of dragon-handling equipment, Cass and Rory jogged through the entrance.

“Children, you are two minutes and forty seconds late!” Came the all-loved voice of Quinn Kelly. She did love to over specify things, as you can already clearly understand.

Same day, 13:00pm, Diagon Alley, London

“It’s not my fault Batman snorted fire! You should have seen It coming anyway- it’s Batman!” Rory couldn’t stop laughing.

“I was looking in the other direction! You should have warned me! I could’ve been fried like a sausage!” Cass complained, desperately poking his fingers through the burnt black holes in his shirt. “What kind of name is Batman for a dragon anyway? Couldn’t Sawyer think of something better?”

“I dunno… Sawyer and Quinn are muggleborn, right? I think it’s a character from a… tee-eve show or something… Or some hogwash like that…” Rory shrugged, beginning to skip merrily. “Can we go and get my supplies now? That session was so-o-o-o boring! Except for your little… accident. That was very funny.”

Cass rolled his eyes good-naturedly, but then adopted a look of sadness. Rory immediately noticed this and swung her arm over his shoulders.

“Hey… We can get your supplies too! Do you think they sell Beauxbatons textbooks here too?” She asked, trying to cheer him up. “Then you won’t miss out on anything! Come on, don’t you wanna get your wand?”

“Nah, Uncle Mathieu said we have to go to some French one near Marseilles at the end of July to get the school stuff.” He waved his hand, as if to dismiss his sudden bad mood and her concerns away. “But I guess I could get my wand now! I think I have enough money, lemme check…”

“Cool! Come one, let’s go-o-o-o!”

The two eleven year olds knew the old wand lore master well. So obtaining these wands as fast as possible wouldn’t be a problem.

“Hey Ollivander!” Rory exclaimed, as they entered the shop. She always loved the smell here. It was the odour of fresh wood and apple cider. Not many people knew this, but the white haired shop keeper was very skilled at making the most delicious apple cider in the whole of London.

“Oh hello, Aquarius, Cass…” Ollivander emerged from the shadows of the wand shelves. He always tended to call her by her full name, for no apparent reason. “Finally come to purchase your wands, have you? Congratulations! Yes, yes…”

He shuffled to the cashier desk and moved a load of papers around hazardously. The children stood by the doorway, looking amused. This was just how the old man was most of the time, and they loved him for it. Finally, he proclaimed a loud “Aha!” and took his hand out from deep inside one of the drawers inside the desk with a pair of small round spectacles. He pushed them up his nose and turned his body around to face them.

“Now, now… which one of you little ones want to go first?”

Rory smiled and pushed a very nervous Cass with her hand.

“Cass would like to! He’s very excited to get his wand, sir.” She stated, grinning even further after receiving a very annoyed glare from the boy.

“Yes? Very well…”

His white head disappeared among the shelves once again, only to emerge a minute later, carrying a dusty slim wooden box.

“Black walnut and tear of thunderbird, if you please.”  
Cass carefully took the lid of the box and took out a slick black waned with leaf carvings in the base. Giving it a small swish, his face was blank for the second when nothing happened… but then a kerosine lamp came violently zooming out from the corner towards him, giving him barely any time to duck and miss it by mere inches.

Ollivander’s eyes widened, and he abruptly snatched it from within his grasp, dumping it back in the box and carrying it away.

“Oh boy, you are going to be a tricky one, I see.” Were the only words they heard him murmur before he reappeared again with a different box.

The same thing happened with that one… and the next one… and the next one after that. The wands changed in rapid succession, and after about ten minutes, the shop was close to a sight of chaotic ruins from the failed experiments.

Finally, he came out with another white box under his arm and offered it to the boy for the twenty-something time today.

“Silver birch and feather of pegasus, 10 inches”

Cass waved it attentively, and was ecstatic to feel a weak wind ruffle his auburn hair, and see a waterfall of white sparks. Grinning unabashedly, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the swirl-patterned, ivory-coloured wand as Ollivander smiled thoughtfully and said.

“Very interesting combination- has a strong aptitude for transfiguration. That’ll be 8 galleons from you, young man!”

Cass didn’t loosen his grip on his newfound wand even when digging into his pockets for the money. Meanwhile, the shopkeeper twisted his head around to face an excited girl with a short purple pixie cut.

“Now, Aquarius… I think I have just the one for you…”

After a good couple of minutes, Ollivander emerged from within the darkest of shelves with a totally smooth, black box.

Unable to contain the thrill building up inside her, Rory wrung her hands impatiently, as the man lifted the lid to reveal a dark burgundy wand with roughly carved wood patterns still visible on the outside.

“Red northern oak with whisker of manticore, 11 inches.”

Gripping it tightly, she flicked it gracefully, and immediately red sparks showered the air above her as she felt a slight breeze turn her purple pixie cut into a wavy long light red and white hairdo. Her eyes turned the brightest green Cass had ever seen as she barely managed to hold down a yelp of elation.

“Hm… not quite what I was expecting, but very well. This wand has an aptitude for runes and wordless magic… 8 galleons and 6 sickles, thank you—“

But Rory had already shoved the coins into his hands and grinned.

“Thanks, Ollivander, thank you!” She shouted, while grabbing Cass by the hand and dragging him out of the doors hurriedly.


	3. Chapter 3

Feet up on the small table by the window in her chosen train compartment, Rory stared outside her window at the never-ending green hills in the distance with a bored expression on her face. Hair in two long, turquoise messy braids down her back, she twirled the coloured ends around her finger in silence. The train had left Platform 9 3/4 half an hour ago, and since then she hadn’t said a word to anyone. No one had come knocking at her compartment door asking if they could sit next to her; no one had needed immediate rescuing from bullies; and therefore Rory had absolutely no clue how, or the wish to make friends any other way. Tapping her fingernails on the window sill to the rhythm of a song stuck in her head, she got awoken from her thoughts with a harsh knocking at the glass in the compartment door. Finally! Curious expression on her face, she examined the faces poking through the glass. The girl had a straight face, olive skin and dark brown hair in a tight French braid. Behind her was a group of cheeky looking boys bearing the utmost punchable smirks known to man. Opening the door, the girl began speaking before Rory could get a word in.

“Good morning, my name is Gracelyn Zabini and this is Harrison Avery, Maverick Richard and Micah Jude. We were wondering—oh goodness, what are you wearing?” She cried out when she saw her denim overalls and oversized knitted pullover. 

Amused, Rory couldn’t say she was surprised at her reaction. Compared to what Gracelyn was wearing, which was a long dark skirt and a cardigan, her outfit must seem rather… different to the style the evident pureblood was used to seeing. 

“What, you don’t like it?” Rory raised her eyebrow in mock confusion. 

“Boys, this is a muggleborn.” Gracelyn scanned Rory from head to toe with a condescending smirk on her face. She stepped forward and squared her shoulders. Now the metamorphmagus thought about it, the brown haired girl was quite a bit taller than her, but she still reckoned she could beat the posh twat in a fight. 

Hearing the snickering behind Gracelyn, Rory stepped forward as well with one of her hands on her hips. 

“What makes you think that?”

“So what, you think you’re a pureblood?” Gracelyn shot back with an amused expression on her face. 

“My name is Aquarius Faye Black!” Rory hissed, surprising herself. Anger rose in her chest rapidly, and although she never thought she would actually mean it if she ever said that phrase, she was determined to prove her opponent wrong. 

Laughter resonated inside the compartment immediately and she was raged to see Gracelyn and the other boys leaning on the walls failing to contain their disbelief. 

“You, a Black?” a tall blonde boy, who she guessed to be Micah Jude, teased, stepping up from behind Gracelyn. “Any Black known to society would spit in your face if they ever come to notice it... which is doubtful, of course. Your mug just blends in with all the others of your kind...”

The bored expression Micah wore made his person all the more outrageously slap-able, Rory thought, fuming inside. The only thing keeping her calm was counting all the different ways she could brutally prank him, but then she got an idea. Whilst Micah tried very hard to hide it, it didn’t surpass her that he kept glancing over to Gracelyn, obviously attempting to impress the... not bad-looking brunette. 

“Right, okay guys.” Rory proclaimed loudly over the ugly giggling. “If you don’t believe me, that’s fine... but you’ll see at the Hogwarts initiation ceremony...”

“The Hogwarts initiation ceremony? What do you know about that?” Gracelyn inserted herself in the conversation once more. 

The metamorphmagus imitated shrugging and replied “Well, I don’t know... but I’ve heard that we have to slay a dragon!” 

She barked the word dragon for emphasis, and it definitely did not let her down. Two of the boys immediately pales and leaned in the door for support. 

“Slay? S-slay a d-dra—“ Maverick hicupped before he was interrupted.

“A what?” Gracelyn fumed, obviously trying to restrain herself from kneeing her sidekick in the nuts. “A dragon?! That is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard! Boys!” She backhanded then across the face with enough force to make an impact, but not quite for it to be actually painful. Sending a dagger glare at Rory, she almost kicked the three boys away from the compartment and out of sight, as Rory smirked triumphantly. 

One might be wondering what any of that had to do with Rory’s prank. Well, everything would come at good time. Hurriedly digging through her leathery bag for one of her company’s less successful inventions called the ‘smokes-bomb’, she grinned viciously. The so called ‘smokes-bomb’, was a small, hard package the size of an egg, and was made for the sake of causing a certain area to fill with completely harmless smoke in order to temporarily blind the intended victims’ vision. One had to merely throw it against a hard surface to activate the process, and the smoke would not clear for a good minute.   
Stuffing one bomb into her pocket, she walked out off her compartment and headed for the direction she saw the four imbeciles head for earlier. Finally spotting the compartment, in which they had positioned themselves in, she sent a simple bladder filling hex at Micah Jude, causing him to rush out of the door at the sudden, unexpected need to attend the bathroom. Quickly transforming her appearance as one of the other boys- Harrison Avery. He had dark hair, light eyes, and a rather large complexion, so it was quite a strange sight to see herself in the reflection of the window outside.   
A she watched Micah returning from the bathroom, she couldn’t help but smirk- the fun was about to begin.   
Waddling to him in the most Harrison way possible, she shout-whispered. 

“Micah! Micah! You’ll never guess what happened just now!” 

Micah fast walked over to him with a half quizzical and still annoyed expressions at the fact that he had just embarrassed himself like that in front of Gracelyn. 

“What, Harrison?” He asked tightlipped. 

“After you ran out of the compartment, Gracelyn started gushing about how handsome and manly you are! Out of nowhere! It was quite sight to behold- she said that she was… oh, what was the word?…” Rory trailed off, inwardly snickering hysterically at the stupefaction plastered on Micah’s face. 

“What? What word! Harrison, what darn word?—” he hissed frantically. 

“She said she was mesmerised by your strong appearance, I think. Yes, yes, that was definitely the word she used…” she sighed theatrically. “It seems that she’s almost in love with you, Micah. What a disastrous shame you don’t feel the same way…” she finished, glancing at him disapprovingly; but he was already shoving her aside and scampering to their compartment as she changed back to her normal appearance and following him leisurely.

Nearing to their door, Rory began hearing parts of what was happening inside. 

“I am too mesmerised by your beauty and femininity, my dear Gracelyn! You are so elegant and so—so—so—” Micah’s voice echoed down the corridor of the train. 

“WHAT?!” The Zabini girl hollered infuriately. “Jude, what in the name of Salazar, did you just dare call me?!” Her voice was getting louder and louder each word she was saying, and Rory did not know whether that was because she nearing closer, or because Gracelyn was getting more enraged each second. 

“YOU INDIGNANT FOOL!” 

Rory soon concluded it was most likely both of the reasons.

“Wh-what d-do you mean, Gracey? I-I though you l-l-loved me?!” Micah rambled in confusion and maybe a hint of fear. 

The girl’s eyes turned steely hard and judging by her expression, she did not seem to like the new nickname. 

“What did you just call me, Jude?” She whispered intimidatingly, and before he could reply she continued to scream. “GRACEY?!” 

And with this extremely amusing fold of events, Rory took the ‘smokes-bomb’ from her overalls pocket and threw it into the compartment. Biting her lip to keep from bursting out in laughter at the utter disorientation, shouting and flustering happening inside, she took out her wand and began the next and final step of her prank. Whispering spells at the completely smoke filled room, she had just enough time to slink away back to her compartment as the smoke cleared and the four purebloods were maddened to find out that their faces were now complete with hilarious messages… which would absolutely fail to come off for the next twenty four hours.   
Gracelyn had I love Micah Jude written on her forehead with pimples; Micah had Gullible ninny; Maverick had Mummy’s boy, and Harrison had Oversized baby. One might think this way too harsh, but nothing but glee and mirth came to Rory’s mind as she skipped back to her compartment. 

A cheerful, lively voice suddenly spoke up from behind her, almost making her jump. 

“Well, well, well, Gideon… what do we have here?” 

Rory spun around and was met with two absolutely identical red headed boys, minimum 3 inches taller than her with absolutely identical grins on their faces, leaning against either wall of the train corridor. 

But before she could get a comment in, one of the boys spoke up in reply.

“Why, Fabian! Isn’t this the girl who just completed the one best prank a first year has ever done on their first day?” 

“Oh, Gideon! How could you be so oblivious!—” 

“Well of course, Fabian, how could I be so—” 

“—stupid, yes Gideon. It’s the one best prank a first year has ever done—” 

“—in their first year!”

“So we would so be honoured—” 

“—to be of your acquaintance, ma’am.”

Rory nearly got lost in their chatter, flaming red hair and sparkly eyes as they finished their very much amusing discussion with overly theatrical bows.

She responded with equal melodramatics, sinking into a low curtsy and staring in their eyes with a perfectly constructed downbeat expression. 

“Why, good sirs, a respectable lady should never introduce herself first in a proper conversation.” She replied, her face stoic, but eyes betraying her internal laughter. 

Not skipping a beat, the twins answered in the same manner.

“Fabian—” 

“—and Gideon—” 

“Prewett, at your service, signora.”

They finished in such perfect unison that Rory could not help herself but snort, really loudly, which sent all three into guffaws of unstoppable laughter. They continued like this until an annoyed student face poked out from one of the nearby compartments and snapped at them to be quiet. With that, the red heads invited the joyful metamorphmagus to their compartment- which so happened to be neighbours with her former one. Grabbing her tattered bag, she followed them inside.  
As they sat down, one of the twins spoke up. 

“So, you still haven’t told us your name, dear fräulein.” 

Narrowing her eyes comically, she smirked; unknowingly attempting to divert the conversation away from his question. 

“And I wanna know how many other languages you know how to call me in, gospodin.”

“What language was that?” 

“Russian! And I was just starting to think I found a match for my obvious talent in languages!”

“Are you Russian? That’s so cool!” The other twin began.

“What? I didn’t say that!”

“Then why are you talking about talent?” 

“I was jok—!”

And in less that a second they were almost rolling on the floor snickering with no apparent reason. 

“Well then. What is your name?”

Changing her appearance to match theirs, she replied with long wavy ginger hair and sunset orange eyes. 

“Rory. Short for Aquarius.”

“Woah, what?!”

“How did you do that?!”

“Merlin, you’re a metamorphmagus!”

“That’s so cool!”

“Can you change into anyone?”

They gasped in unison.

“Is that how you convinced Jude that Zabini had a crush on him?!”

She smirked evilly.

“Yeah.”

They both made sounds that were on borderline of squealing with excitement. 

“That is genius!” they exclaimed. “You are absolutely and certainly accepted into our group of pranksters!” 

“You’re pranksters?!” Rory cried in glee, not that she was at all surprised. The twins were definitely a pair of people one would say made of prankster material. Then she narrowed her eyes playfully. “But what makes you think I’ll accept your little invitation?” 

Gideon gasped dramatically; or was it Fabian? No matter. 

“All right,” she sighed. “I might consider it...”

Four eyes continued to stare at her. 

“Okay, okay I’ve considered and I want in!” 

The rest of the train journey was spent in a similar fashion. The three talked, laughed, and most of all took the time to tell each other about the pranks they’d pulled on people in the past. She’d asked too many times which twin was which; and she was also pretty sure they kept switching which names they’d say every time; but by the end, Rory decided she had it all figured out. You see, Gideon had an almost unnoticeable birthmark on his left side of his chin, while Fabian did not.   
Having found out they were a whole two years older than her, she was, at first, worried as to how they were going to play pranks together; but the redheads assured her they would find a way. 

Subsequently, they changed into their robes and made their way out of the carriage door, still heatedly chatting about one thing or another.

About half an hour later.

Despite the booming request for silence by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, nobody could prevent the whispered buzz of first year excitement hanging in the air. The start of year feast never ceased to have a constant, imminent murmuring throughout- until the speech was over, of course; then the hall would be practically booming from all the noise. 

Or so Rory’d been told by Fabian and Gideon. 

However, her announced name echoing around the hall had almost suspended time itself for a few spine-chilling seconds. Only for a few seconds though; when she’d gathered up her courage and made those steps towards the Sorting Hat on the platform, bewildered faces and startled mumbling ensued. 

Apparently ‘Aquarius Faye Black’ had that affect on them, she thought jokily… although she dreaded what would come after the Sorting.   
Nevertheless, her long hair was pulsating turquoise and purple behind her, as she held her head high and strode nearer to the chair. 

Oh yeah, she thought. Maybe that little quirk made quite an impression too. What would be going through everyone’s heads now? Look, there’s an apparent long lost Black family daughter we didn’t know about! Oh and would you look at that, she’s a metamorphmagus too! Fancy that! She tried to scan the hall for Fabian and Gideon, but only had enough time to catch their identical confused faces.

‘Hello, Aquarius.’ A voice echoed in her head once the sorting hat was lowered down. 

Hiding her firsthand surprise at the sudden foreign words, she spoke inside her head very loudly and clearly. 

‘Howdy!’ 

She didn’t think it was possible for a hat to seem startled, but Aquarius could definitely detect at least some mild agitation. 

‘Merlin! You don’t have to shout! Just speak normally. So what do we have here, hm? Oh this is interesting…’ 

‘Interesting? How so?’

‘Oh well, I’ve kind of being waiting for you for quite some time now, Miss Black.’

‘Really? I bet you say that to everyone, sir.’ she replied, amused. The hat paused for a second.

‘Well can’t say no to that, can I now? Anyhow, I shall let you figure your own mind on your own in the upcoming years. I, personally, don’t know what to think of you. And yes, I say that to most people too. Remember, I can see your questions in your thoughts before you ask them. Now please be so kind as to be quiet so I can sort you in peace.’

The hat quietened down for a second.

‘I am drawn between 2 houses. Ah, well, what are we to lose, am I right? GRYFFINDOR!’

Once again, the chatter quietened down. Despite being confused concerning the last sentence that the hat had said, her attention was drawn to the shocked faces of the hall. However, to her immediate surprise, it was Headmaster Dumbledore that started clapping first, after who the Gryffindor table began, and then the rest.   
Finding a free seat next to another first year who had already been sorted, she attempted again to find the familiar faces of the twins, but failed to do so. Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"Hey, Aquarius, right? I’m Finn. Finn Davis.”

She turned around and smiled, her hair turning blonde and eyes brown to match his. “Yeah, but I prefer Rory. How you doin’?”

“Woah! Hold up a second! What was that with your hair! Oh and your eyes! What?! Sweet Jesus, is that some kind of spell?!” The boy’s eyes it up with amazement.

Rory laughed.

“Nah, Davis, it’s not a spell; I’m a metamorphmagus!” She wondered why this boy wasn’t in some kind of aghast or shocked state as almost everyone else on the table; all of which were pathetically attempting at casting subtle side-eye glances in her direction.

Finn’s bewildered large eyes became even wider for a second. 

“A meta-what?” He half-shrieked, half-whispered, and nearly knocking off a cup of pumpkin juice in the process. 

“A meta—”

“—metamorphmagus” Rory was frustratingly interrupted by someone from across the table. 

Two sets of eyes turned to face an impressionably smug brunet, leaning over with both elbows resting dangerously close to a very large, unstable dessert tower. His slightly crooked teeth were showing in a complacent grin and his messy bangs were hooding most of his eyebrows. Rory also noticed that he was abnormally lanky, even from his sitting down position.

“So you’re a Black, huh? Interesting stuff, right Finn? A metamorphmagus and a Black? What did mummy and daddy have to say about that, hey, Aquarius? My name’s Hercules Sean, by the way.” He started taunting. 

Rory had been told multiple times that she had somewhat of a mild anger issue, and she may have possibly, potentially started understanding that, last autumn when she had almost gotten beaten up by a kid with who she’d picked a fight with because he called her weak… Ironic, she knew.

Thinking about this, she squeezed the sides of the bench she was sitting on, but remained her face neutral. 

“Funny you’d say that, Hercules, because it seems you’ve stepped into the wrong century… so how about you go running back to daddy god Jupiter?” She leaned over the table to face him head on. “I mean a walking lamppost and a jackass? What would mummy and daddy have to say about that?” 

Hercules did not back down, but rather straightened his back further to decrease the distance in-between them.

“Hm, at least I’m not named after an astrology term because, well…” he paused mockingly, “ I feel like Mars is in the Aquarius constellation under the… hm, what was it… natal Saturn and that means… someone’s a little feisty at the end of their monthly cycle.” 

Any witnessing eye could have detected Rory gradually losing her cool, but she fought to keep it under control, twisting her lips into a similar teasing smirk.

‘Well after that little speech I’m really looking forward to seeing you in class- I mean the spells are all in your native Latin, huh, Hercules? Although if your magical talent is as terrible as your astrology… I really wouldn’t like to be anywhere near you unless I’d like to have my hair catch fire.’

A ripple of laughter went through the small circle of curious people that their… conversation had attracted.  
Hercules, on the other hand, even had the audacity to laugh; although she did begin to see some anger flash in his face expression for a fraction of a second before it was back to its usual frustrating smirk. However it didn’t take him long to retaliate.

‘It’s rich that you’d mention your hair, I mean, all you can focus on is my name, when yours is all the more interesting to talk about. Tell me, Miss Black, why haven’t we all heard of you before? Is it because Daddy Black kept you hidden in a dungeon away from human eye because of how much of an embarrassment turquoise-haired baby girl Black was?

To be fair, when she looked back on this moment, Rory knew that technically, this guy knew nothing of her past and hadn’t the slightest idea how close to the truth he was. Furthermore, it really wasn’t even that good of an insult because he was basically just repeating what he’d already said previously. But his dark eyes were so derisive, and his posture so relaxed and unbothered that it made Rory want to just punch him in the nose. 

And so she did.

Immediately people began pointing, cheering, shouting and smirking at them as if they knew it was coming all along. She only caught a glimpse of Fabian and Gideon at the back of the crowd cheering and looking only the slightest bit shocked, when a middle aged woman pushed through the students and strode right next to both Rory and Hercules.   
As soon as everyone saw her, she heard hushed urgent whispers of ‘It’s Professor McGonagall’, ‘Oh my god, McGonagall!’ and ‘Everyone, scram! It’s McGonagall!”; therefore, she concluded that this woman was a professor, and her name was McGonagall.   
Looking back over the table, Hercules was being helped out by a boy with dark combed hair, who was handing him tissues to try and stop the bleeding. Beside her, Finn had a terrified look on his face, probably a result of the glaring professor.

‘Miss Black! Mr Sean! What is the reason behind this behaviour within the first hour of the ceremony! This is unacceptable! Miss Black, why in the name of Merlin would you even think of punching your fellow Gryffindor?” Rory did not want to mention what about their argument was to a teacher, but she felt like Hercules would give it away even if she did. 

But before she could say anything, to her complete surprise, Hercules answered. ‘It’s okay, Professor, it was nothing. Could I please go to the nurse?’ McGonagall did not look pleased, but nevertheless pointed to the dark haired boy. “Very well, but you are both to receive detention first thing Wednesday after class. Mr Longbottom , would you please accompany Mr Sean to the infirmary? You will receive your lesson schedules later in the afternoon.’

As they left, Rory’s eyes followed them until Hercules turned around and glared straight at her. Then she decided to turn her attention away. She spent the rest of the meal talking to Fabian, Gideon and Finn, with who she could quickly take her mind off the fact that she somehow got detention on her very first day of Hogwarts.

Later on in the day, in the Gryffindor first year dorms

‘Hey, you’re the mysterious Black daughter, aren’t you? I’d have thought we’d be roommates!” A clear voice welcomed her into her new dormitory. A girl with golden blonde wavy hair and tanned skin was kneeling near one of the beds. Walking over to her, Rory also noticed that she had very dark blue eyes and a load of plaited colourful bracelets on both wrists.

‘Hm, yeah well here is my mysterious self, but to be honest, I prefer Rory.’ She answered jokily. ‘And you are?…’ 

The girl stood up and put her robe on her bed; meanwhile Rory realised that she was a good inch taller than her.

‘Oh yeah, I’m Marlene. Marlene McKinnon.’ She reached into her suitcase and took out a chocolate frog packet, picking two out and offering one to Rory. ‘Want one?’ 

‘Ooo, sure thing, I love this stuff, thanks!’ Rory accepted and looked around the room. She smirked and grinned at her newfound friend. ‘Looks like we’re the only new Gryffindor girls! What the hell, this is so awesome; we’ve got this whole giant room for only the two of us!’ 

And indeed, in a room which is normally suited for 6 beds, there were only two. The room itself was in the rough shape of a somewhat octagon, with the two beds facing inwards and towards the door. It was also totally clean- something that would most probably soon change, Rory thought amusedly. She ran up to her bed and flew onto it in hopes of a soft bedding, but ended up groaning in pain when her leg smacked onto the edge of her suitcase. 

‘Ugh— this— stupid— suitcase!’ She kicked it off the bed whilst still clutching her injured shin.

She could hear Marlene stifling her laughs and looked over at her.

‘Oh my god!’ She was lying perpendicular on the bed, propped up by her elbows and continuing to laugh. ‘Oh- oh my god, are you okay?’ 

Rory stretched out on the bed, and soon her whines transformed into giggles, and then into full howls joining Marlene in their hysterical laughter, all the while gasping for breath. 

And in the midst of hearing how utterly mad they both sounded giggling on two beds, with their laughter probably reaching ears of those even in the Common Room; Rory couldn’t help but think that this day was the start of something amazing.


	4. Chapter 4

_Same place, about an hour later_

Of course, Rory hadn’t explored even a small fraction of what was left in her Hogwarts experience. However while writing her first letter to Cass, she couldn’t fit everything that had happened to her since they said goodbye to each other on the station onto 3 double sided pages however hard she tried. Nevertheless, she was very happy with herself when she finally folded them up, slid them into the envelope and wrote the address of Beauxbatons on the back. Unfortunately, they could not afford an owl or any type of animal at Diagon Alley, having spent all of it for textbooks and other supplies; so now she had to go to the Owlery and send it off with one of the school ones. 

She looked towards Marlene who was flicking through what seemed to be a book on quidditch while murmuring the lyrics of some song to herself. 

“Hey Marlene!” 

She looked up from her book. 

“Wanna come with me to the Owlery?” 

“Are you kidding? It’s past curfew like half an hour ago!”

“Huh, already?” Rory frowned and started biting her fingernails. Then she looked up. 

“So?” 

Marlene adopted a curious look on her face which could only mean one thing. 

“Purposefully breaking the school rules on our first day? Sure, why not?” And she wasn’t even a little bit joking. 

Over the past hour Rory had gathered quite a bit of intel on her new roommate. Firstly, Marlene was an only child, and had grown up somewhere in a house on the coast of Devon, which was shielded from muggle eye by some protection spells, much like the entrance to Diagon Alley, Rory thought. From what she had heard, she also concluded that Marlene was from a pretty rich pureblooded family, but her parents weren’t nearly as strict to sticking to magical tradition as some others. Whilst unpacking her things from her suitcase, the golden haired girl made her obsession with quidditch moderately obvious- this assumption was made when she took a huge Chudley Cannons poster and hung It next to her bed along with her shrunken broomstick and her mini toy figures of Chudley Cannons players, which were charmed to fly around her nightstand. Something that Rory found very funny was Marlene’s reaction when she admitted to never having played quidditch. Let’s just say that she didn’t talk to her for about 20 minutes after throwing her quaffle and snitch themed pillow aimed at her head.  
And lastly, she confessed to never having played a single prank on anybody before; something that Rory evilly convinced her would soon change.  
In conclusion, Rory decided that Marlene was very much her type of person, which was further proven when she agreed on sneaking out past curfew on their very first day. 

Rory grinned, beckoned her out of the room, and started tiptoeing down the stone staircase. Peering into the Common Room, Rory signalled it was safe and they crept their way out of the painting. They jumped in shock as they heard an abrupt snoring coming from above, but started giggling as they realised it was just the Fat Lady peacefully sleeping in her frame. 

Now, the two girls were too overly preoccupied with the overwhelming sense of their own mischief so neither of them had enough insight to actually realise they didn’t have the slightest idea of where the Owlery was. Nevertheless, that was an obstacle they were willing to face and continued their journey through the castle, figuring out where the Owlery was through the process of elimination. This did not end well, considering the fact that they didn’t even come close to knowing how many towers the school had, much less which one they kept the owls in.  
To their surprise, there were not many teachers or prefects patrolling the hallways, probably because no one thought anyone would be insane enough to go scouring the castle at 12 in the night on their first day- funny how that turned out. 

As they ambled through the corridors by the light of the moon and the dimly lit torches on the stone walls, Rory fiddled with the small ring on a thin chain around her neck.

“It’s a nice ring. Where’d you get it?” Marlene asked curiously. 

One of the reasons why Rory liked Marlene so much from her first impression was because she didn’t ask personal questions. Rory thought that she’d get bombarded with interrogative inquiries about her past and why her last name was Black, and if she was related to the Blacks; but Marlene hadn’t done that, hopefully because she sensed it made her enormously uncomfortable. Obviously, Marlene also did not know that the ring linked into all that stuff.  
It crossed her mind from time to time about where this ring came from - the only thing she remembered about it was that she had it for as long back as she could possibly recall. When she asked Harley about it, she replied that it was in the pocket of her dress of her two year old self when she first appeared in the gang.  
Speaking of her two year old self, Rory barely remembered her life previous to the one with the gang. She was so grateful to Harley and Jackson for not keeping any information that they had of her ancestry from her- they gave her every little detail of her past that she ever asked for. The reason they knew more of what had happened to her than she herself was because apparently, when she was only brought in at 2 years old, she would constantly have nightmares of it, preventing her from sleeping properly. Therefore, Harley removed all the memories she had of it and put them in a pensieve, which was kept somewhere in the gang’s safe.  
See, pensieve’s are excessively expensive and fragile pieces of equipment- supposedly it was inherited from Cass’s Uncle Mathieu’s grandmother, who was a crazy good magical engineer and managed to build one herself. However she died soon after so no one really knows how she did it. Cass’s dream is to recreate the instructions his great grandmother made, and learn how to construct his own pensieve- but even his Uncle Mathieu, who was the head of the Magical Engineering department, had no idea where to even start when he also had the same dream when he was younger. So obviously, it was very funny to most when he created experiments and practicals that almost always blew up in his face, in attempt to make this dream a reality.  
So back to the point, Rory could potentially find out about her mysterious ring and where she got if she wanted to, by merely asking for those memories back from the pensieve, but every time she plucked up the courage to go into the room where the pensieve was held and actually do it, she always got too scared and ran away. Essentially, this was why she now knew the basics of who her family was and why she ran away as a toddler, but didn’t know the first hand experience because of what a coward she was. 

Rory clicked her tongue and pulled on the chain again. 

“I don’t actually know. I’ve just had it for as long as I can remember.” 

Marlene scratched her head. 

“Huh. That’s pretty cool, I don’t have anything like that.” 

“You got epic bracelets, though. You made them yourself, huh?”

“Yeah. My mum taught me how to braid them and make cool patterns when I was younger, and it’s kinda been my thing since.” Her eyes lit up. “Hm, maybe-e-e… I can braid them into your hair sometime, it would look so epic!” 

Rory licked her teeth and grinned.

“Well I don’t really need you to do that, do I?” 

And she watched as Marlene’s face expression shifted to amazement when her turquoise braids shifted to long waves braided with multicoloured thread. 

“Oh my god, Rory!” She squealed, and then looked around in alarm for any sign of person that could have potentially heard them. Then her attention came back to her. “I mean, I knew you could do that, but I didn’t know how cool it would be to actually see you do it in front of me!” 

“Well yeah, that reaction is quite useful sometimes, you know.” She grinned mysteriously. “Definitely helpful in the comedy department of a job.” 

Marlene jumped when Rory changed her hair into a red afro and her face into that of a clown’s.

“Oh my god, you know what I just realised, you look just like the entertainer person at Zonko’s, who dances on that little stage of theirs handing out leaflets and stuff!..” Marlene began, but then seeing the clown transform into an eagle beak with a unicorn horn, her mouth dropped open and she started to cackle. “Oh my god, that was you!”

As Rory’s face transformed back into the clown’s, it now had the make up of a sad expression with a giant tear flowing from one eye. 

“Marle-e-ene! Why you make fun of me-e-e?” 

That only made Marlene laugh harder until she was clutching the wall to keep herself upright. 

Suddenly, a white, transparent head wearing a jester’s hat appeared though that wall, making both of the girls jump. 

“Oh-h no-o-o. Are teensy weeny firsties breaking school rules on their first day?” The ghost began teasing, with an insufferably annoying smirk on its face as its whole body followed its head through the stone. “Better hope Peeves isn’t mean enough to…” he put his hand next to his mouth and mockingly whispered “… tell the professors and stir up some trouble, hm?” 

“Hey—” Rory began, but was interrupted. 

“Oh Professors!… Professors!…” Peeves started shouting down the corridor, and then chased both students the way they began sprinting full speed. 

They, like any other student or teacher in the castle knew that the possibilities of one getting lost in castle are very high, and chances are, that everyone tends to get lost at least once throughout their whole Hogwarts experience. And so it happens, that two first years called Marlene and Rory do this very thing on their very first day. In fact, for the first few minutes, their minds were so preoccupied by the effort of getting away from Peeves, they don’t even realise until they find themselves in front of a dead end in the form of a huge stone wall. 

Gasping for breath, Rory slanted her back against it and slowly slid down to sit on the floor, beckoning Marlene to sit beside her. 

‘Merlin. Where even are we?’ She walked over and sat to Rory’s left. 

‘Ugh, I dunno… I think somewhere around the Ravenclaw Common Room? It’s the only other common room in a tower, and I see it out of that window — and it’s definitely not the Gryffindor one.’ The now lilac colour haired girl answered. ‘Heh, it’ll be fun trying to find our way back. Say no to sleep today because we’re going on a dorm hunt!’ 

Marlene sighed and began gathering small pebbles from the floor absentmindedly. ‘Well. It’s been quite an adventure with you, hasn’t it?’ Rory couldn’t decide whether that was sarcastic or not. Marlene began throwing the pebbles at the nearby wall in boredom. The she smiled. ‘We’re so-o-o screwed if we get caught though, imagine.’ 

Rory began giggling. 

‘I’m just imagining McGonnagal finding us alone and asleep in one of the corridors tomorrow morning; I wonder if it’s allowed to get more than one detention in one day?..’

‘Oh my Merlin!’ Marlene began giggling too and threw another pebble at the wall.

Suddenly, they heard a quiet rumble and creaking, as if some kind of rusty kegs were turning. 

‘Do you hear that?’ 

The flame in the torches quivered and signalled the opening of a gap in the stone, steadily increasing in width until reaching about 2 metres in length, revealing a darkly lit narrow corridor.

The girls jumped up and half faced their discovery.  
‘What on earth is that?!’ Gasped Marlene.

‘How did that even happen?’ 

‘What is going on?!’ 

‘I’m so confused right now—‘

‘Rory, Rory—‘

‘The hell?—‘

‘Rory! I think this is a secret passage!’

‘A what?’ 

‘A secret passage - I’ve heard rumours about these, but I didn’t think they were actually real!’

Rory stood agape with excitement, walked over to the opening and tried to look further inside. 

‘Neat!’ She entered the corridor, slid a finger along a poking out bit of rock and raised her eyebrows. ‘Damn, no one’s been here for a long time!’ She turned back towards Marlene nearly jumping up and down with excitement. ‘Do you know what this means? This means there are definitely a bunch’a these all over the castle only we know about!’ 

Marlene looked unsure. 

‘Hm, I feel like that seems like a bit of a stretch.’

Rory beckoned her inside ‘Come on! How tight is this, huh?’

‘I dunno, Rory. I mean what if we get lost? Like no ones gonna find us if we die here, you know?’

The turquoise haired girl squinted her eyes and put her hands on her hips, leaning to the side of the newfound passageway. 

‘Come on dude! How would we even die, the ceiling collapsing or us getting lost in the maze of passages forever?—’

‘—yes!’

‘—And it’s not like we’re not lost now, amiright, like how bad can this be?’ She continued while raising an eyebrow. ‘Besides do you really wanna be the person who walked away from a secret passage that hasn’t been found in like a thousand years?’ 

Marlene bit her lip, trying to hide a smile. 

Rory winked. ‘We both know you wanna…’

The other witch lifted her head to the right and grinned reluctantly. 

‘Fine but if we, like, get murdered or something I’m gonna kill you.’ 

Rory whipped back to face the corridor and threw her hands up. 

‘Alright!’

And just like Rory had not particularly anticipated, the passage was cold, dark and exceptionally scary; both the witches crept through the corridor shrieking at every creaking floorboard and unexpected scurrying rat they came across. Soon they decided to keep talking amongst themselves to keep their minds off the fact that the ceiling looked like it might, in all seriousness, collapse on their heads at any second. 

‘Hey Rory,’

‘Yeah?’

‘How did we actually get the passage to open, do you think?’

She thought about it for a moment before answering. 

‘I don’t know, maybe the wall works like the wall to Diagon Alley? You know when you have to push specific bits of stone in some pattern like a password?’

‘Oh yeah, that would make sense- and I was throwing pebbles at the wall too, maybe I accidentally hit the right stones!’

‘I dunno, that would’ve made an awfully big coincidence, you know?’ 

“Yeah well we don’t have any other explanations.’ 

‘We’ll have to return to that place and figure it out tomorrow. Although we don’t even know where we were…’

‘You mean today? It’s like 5 hours till we have to wake up for lessons!’

‘If we even get to our beds, I bet this passage leads into like a werewolf’s den where we’ll get eaten and no one will ever find us.’ Marlene grumbled. ‘We’ll just be the dumb first years that went missing on their first day.’

Rory laughed. 

‘Ah yes, and we’ll come back as ghosts to haunt other super cool fearless first years who dared sneak out at night and become legends.’ She turned to face the pouting blonde imitating a ghost. ‘Young witches and wizards shall write stories about us and write their thesises on what the possibilities of our unfinished business might be but they never succeed in finding out because it is—’

‘—I’ll tell you what my unfinished business is, you idiot’ Marlene snarled and half seriously launched herself at Rory who squealed and began sprinting down the corridor until she tripped, causing Marlene to smash into her and send them both flying into a strange wall at the end of the passage which suddenly flew open at the impact. 

Groaning and cursing, the girls struggled at untangling themselves and standing up, clutching onto each other for support. 

Rory glanced at where they came from, seeing a large widely open painting of an angry person outrageously scowling at them, revealing their dark passage.

‘Oh my god we’re at the astronomy tower! And there’s the Owlery! Rory, what the hell, we did it! We’re alive!’ Exclaimed Marlene, who had already walked to the end of the hall. 

Just as Rory was about to answer, she was interrupted by an extremely frustrated voice.

‘What is this! This is outrageous, now this is outrageous, I tell you!’ 

They jumped and turned around to face the painting that obscured the secret passage. Rory walked over to it and closed it so that the painting was finally back to its original position.

The picture was a rather boring portrait of a man wearing a dark red robe and with very long greying hair against a dark background. 

‘Kids nowadays have no respect for their elders, none! When I was alive, children were whipped when they disobeyed— and now you come and you disturb me while I sleep? The animosity, the audacity that you tiny disrespecting bastards—’

‘Hey, who you calling bastards Gandalf, I’ll show you ba—’

‘What she means is, sir, we don’t wanna be rude, we were just wondering about the passage that you’re hiding.’ Marlene interrupted Rory grabbing her by the hand to hold her back.

‘The passage?’

Marlene nodded.

‘I do not know anything about that passage. At least I don’t remember it. No one’s been here for about a century—’

Rory grinned and punched her fist up in the air.

‘—I actually haven’t talked to anyone decent for about that time, the abominable bastards that put me here. Let me tell you, why on Merlin’s spell book would they put me, a pristine Duke, in a hallway that no one ever uses except to engage in sexual intercourse!’ He continued to rant while the girls raised their eyebrows. ‘The only thing I’ve been able to talk to is Chuck over there, the laughable bastard—’ He pointed to the wall opposite him, where a rather large gentleman sat in an extraordinarily beautiful painted garden. 

Marlene seemed shocked at such a rude response to her forced politeness. 

‘Arse.’ She grumbled. 

‘—Sir what’s your name?’ Rory interrupted curiously and very much amused. 

‘—You ignorant bastard child how dare you interrupt Duke Dick Daines of Rutland!’ The man snapped. 

‘Mm, the name suits you very much, sir’ Marlene noted, wryly nodding her head slowly while desperately trying to hold in her giggling. 

‘Yes I agree but we better get going now, Sir Dick. It was extraordinarily pleasant to have made your acquaintance.’ Rory carried on, doing a royal wave and making her way to the end of the hallway whilst curtseying in an overly exaggerated manner.

Dick, apparently having sensed their sarcasm began reddening in his face. 

‘You come back, insolent children, no one will get away with disrespecting a Duke! I shall— I shall tell your professors!’ 

Rory turned her head and called out. 

‘Hmm, shame me and Marlene here’ll be graduated next time someone’ll show their face in this corridor for you to tell them!’

The girls ran away giggling before he could answer, making their way to the Owlery for Rory to finally send her letter. On the way back to their common room, they only got lost about twice and got under their covers with a total of about 3 hours until they had to get up for their first full day at Hogwarts.  
Concluding the events of her day, Rory felt that she was more than happy with her experiences so far. Not that she’d admit it to anyone, she had been decently worried about interacting with the whole Hogwarts atmosphere, especially since she had always anticipated the fact that Cass would’ve always been by her side from the moment they both found out about the school. Moreover she felt very much approving of her newfound alliance with Marlene; as she had thought previously, she was very much her type of person.

_The next morning_

“Marlene, have you seen my tie?” 

“No, have you seen my other sock?”

“I don’t think so, is that it?”

“No! That’s one of my sock puppets!”

“Sock puppets?”

“Yeah, puppets out of socks!”

“Yeah, but it’s still a sock, you can still wear it.”

“No I can’t! It has eyes that blink and it constantly swears at you!”

“Really? That’s even more reason to wear it, though, come on Marls!”

“No! Rory! Don’t wake it! Don’t you dare wake it! It’ll start screaming or something and neither of us want that!”

“Ugh, fine…” Rory grumbled whilst inconspicuously smirking, picking up the sock and dangling it in front of her. 

“You goddamn humans, always pissing me off, why can’t you just let me bloody sleep! The bloody audacity!—” Rory yelped and threw the screaming puppet across the room, to be caught by a snorting Marlene, who hastily trapped it inside her suitcase to drown out the sound.

“Oh my Godric!” Rory dramatically clutched her heart and leaned onto the side of her bed for support, suppressing giggles. Suddenly, something collided with her face, sending her onto the floor, leaving her gasping. 

“Found your tie!”

“I will fight you!” 

“You can try!”

“What? You think I can’t take you?”

“I just think you’re too short.”

Rory did an exaggerated gasp.

“That’s cold!” She scrambled up from the floor, her shirt half tucked and her tie too loose, hair in a messy braid down her back.

“Whatever, we’re late, we need to get down for breakfast, dude.” 

“Fine, but at least I’m not afraid of bats!” She pompously stuck her nose up high and marched out the door with a huge grin in response to Marlene’s annoyance.

“That’s unfair! And I’m only a bit scared!” She followed Rory out after grabbing her cloak, bag and her hairbrush. “Don’t you need to do your hair?”

But when she exited through the doorframe, she was met with two very skilfully done, long dutch braids with turquoise highlights and a teasing smirk. Her annoyance was increased at how genuinely good they looked. 

“Merlin, I hate you!” 

Laughing, the girls descended down the winded staircase and entered the bustling common room. 

“Hey Aquarius Faye Black!” 

Rory whipped around to see two identical grinning faces with practically identical ginger mops on top of their heads for hear. 

“Hey, it’s Fabian and Gideon! How was your night?” 

“Great, slept like a log!” 

“Yeah, you would, snoring like that!”

“Gideon, Merlin,” Fabian glanced at him with a mock disapproving look. “Nothing’s ever good enough for you!”

“That’s cause of the sleep deprivation.” Gideon grumbled. Then his face transformed back. “How about you?” 

She beamed cheekily.

“It was pretty great. Me and Marlene went—” she stopped herself and then gestured at Marlene. “Oh wait, sorry, I forgot to introduce. Marlene, this is Gideon and Fabian Prewett, we met on the train, Gideon and Fabian, this is Marlene, my roommate.” 

“Nice to meet you, Marlene!”

“A pleasure, Marlene!”

“Gideon, Fabian, let’s go before they run out of the chocolate rolls!” An asian looking guy beckoned them over from near the exit. 

“Yeah okay, hold on a second!” The twins turned back. “We’ll get going then, you coming with us?” 

“I actually need to go get my ink from the dormitory, I just realised I forgot it. Marlene will you wait?” 

“Yeah sure, I’ll just stay in the common room.”

“Okay then, bye!” 

“See you, guys!” 

And with that, the ginger pair left for breakfast, Rory for her ink, leaving Marlene standing in the common room. 

The room really did have a very cosy feeling to it, Marlene did have to admit. The walls were a dark burgundy, the fireplace outlined with gold patterns, a red couch and a table next to it. She leaned her back against it and put her hair brush in her bag slung over her shoulder. 

“Miss McKinnon, what an honour!”

She raised her head abruptly for her eyes to be met with a group of 5 boys standing right in front of her. She raised her eyebrow in amusement at their diversity in behaviour. The boy who had just greeted her was at the very front with an almost annoyingly arrogant smirk on his face, strongly contrasting to another boy behind him who was staring at the ground and awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. The others were on very different levels of confidence in between those two.

“Hello boys, how’re you doing this fine morning?”

“We’re doing great thanks for asking, how about you?”

“Fine, except I still don’t know who you are.” She replied dryly.

“Jake, stop flirting and hurry up, I want to eat breakfast” remarked someone from behind him, rolling his eyes exasperatedly. 

“Frank, I wasn’t—"

“Y’kinda were, buddy” Marlene smiled as Rory walked over to her side, winking in the direction of the guy apparently called Jake. “Hey, handsome.”

‘Miss Black, what an honour!” A sandy haired boy came over, grinning both cheekily and somewhat awkwardly. 

“Damn right it’s an honour” Rory glared at Hercules who was glaring back viciously, realising he was part of this little clique. The she turned to the boy who spoke to her. “Oh hey, Finn!”

“Come on, we gotta go, Rory” Marlene tugged her friend by the shirt towards the exit. “I am actually quite hungry.” 

“See you boys!” 

As they walked to the Hall, Marlene turned to Rory.

“Wait, so those are the Gryffindor first years?”

“Yeah. I think I remember most of their names from the sorting. The guy at the front is Jacob Cladestine, then there’s Finn Davis; I talked to him yesterday at the table; also Hercules Sean, the guy I punched” she grinned at the memory. “I don’t think I remember the other 2, though.”

“Oh I think I do. The guy who called Jake out for flirting was Frank Longbottom, I’m pretty sure. And the other boy, who was kind of at the back; his name is Zac Laharey. He doesn’t talk much - I tried at the sorting too.”

Rory grinned. 

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because 2 of us against 5 of them for the next 7 years?” She smirked. “It’ll be on hell of a ride.”


	5. Chapter 5

**In the DADA classroom after breakfast**

‘Pst, Marlene. _Marlene!_’ 

Rory was bored out of her mind. She had been staring out the slightly ajar window for so long that the big tree on the horizon started to look like a crouching giant holding a green, furry umbrella. 

When they had gotten their schedules, the purple eyed girl was overjoyed to see that Defence against the Dark Arts was her first lesson. At the breakfast table, she had gushed to all who would listen about the different spell applications her family had (sort of family, she guessed). Some people would listen and perceive her as arrogant, but in all honesty, Rory was just apparently _a very passionate person_, in the words of Harley. 

However having stepped foot in the classroom and glanced at the man sitting behind the teacher’s desk, she guessed it was not going to be as memorable an experience she had initially looked forward to. Her mood was further worsened when the hunch backed, grey haired professor announced he had put together ‘_a rather spectacular seating plan_’. The loud chorus of groaning in response told Rory that the students surrounding her were just as unimpressed as she was.  
The only thing keeping her going through this infinitely long hour of lesson time was the fact that Marlene was sat just in front of her and they could make fun of Professor Osborn together.

‘What?’ Marlene replied, turning back to face her. 

Rory flicked her wand and sent a small folded piece of paper flying to the blonde’s desk. 

Marlene raised her eyebrows at such an unoriginal method of communication in class but opened the scrunched up ball nevertheless. She smiled at what was written inside. 

_Let’s skip dinner today and go looking for more secret passages! _

She quickly scribbled her agreement and sent the scrap back to Rory’s desk. 

As she fiddled with her multiple bracelets, the girl pondered on the newborn friendship that had formed between her and the metamorphmagus. Although they had only met less than 24 hours ago, she had decided that Rory was a very interesting persona.  
Back at home, Marlene had had quite a few friends, but none of them were particularly close; they were mainly just her parents’ friends’ children; and despite her having nothing against them, she wasn’t too sad about leaving them behind and having the opportunity to make new friends in Hogwarts.  
However she didn’t know much about her turquoise haired roommate, she realised. Recalling last night, there was nothing in specific that came to mind when she searched for Rory opening up about her home life. To an extent, Marlene wanted to respect the probable boundaries she had set up, but curiosity did get the better of her more often than not. Did it sometimes cause her to get into uncomfortable and perhaps daunting situations? No comment. But she owned it, so it was okay. Right?

The passageway she and Rory discovered the day before had made quite an impact on her. Of course, it would do so on anyone, but the blonde had frequently read about them in various books and listened to her mother excitedly talk about them in her childhood. It was fantastically eye opening to see them in real life.  
You see, Jacinta McKinnon in her teenage years was who some might call a wildcard. The woman defied the early 20th century pureblood tradition in almost all ways possible; she hadn’t had prodigious grades, a spoilt attitude or expensive, stylish clothing. Her family’s business had gone bankrupt in the Great Depression when she was about Marlene’s current age, and despite their pureblood status, they were really quite poor. Hence when she was 20 years old, her parents arranged a marriage with the more privileged Frederic McKinnon son. Since then, Jacinta had dreamed of reopening her family’s former business; had told her daughter all about it; and now Marlene’s dream was to join her in this project.  
So the girl’s best friend was her mother; and in a way, Rory slightly reminded Marlene of what she thought her mother seemed like when she was their age. It was strange, she understood, but in her mind, cute nonetheless.

Suddenly she felt a tapping on her shoulder and turned around to face a Rory with the exact same hairstyle as Professor Osborn. Snorting, she picked her own hair ends and placed them under her nose to imitate the man’s moustache. 

‘Ms McKinnon!’ A crackling voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Ms McKinnon!’ 

Marlene whipped around to face the front of the classroom and brushed her fringe from out of her eyes, trying to remember what the topic of the lesson was without being distracted by Jake Cladestine’s judging smirk two desks to her right.

‘Yes, Professor?’ 

‘Please read the extract at the end of page 10 in your textbook. If I have to ask you again, I shall be obliged to take away house points. Personally, I don’t think Gryffindor would be happy with starting the new school year with a negative total?’ 

Marlene had to fight her jaw about to drop. Where had the condescendence come from in this frail shell of a man? 

‘I am sorry, sir.’ She replied, trying not to roll her eyes at the sound of Rory’s silent snort from behind her. Flicking to page 10 of the textbook, she felt a sharp pain in her index finger and hissed at the abominable sense of a paper cut. 

Godric, today was not her day. 

**14th October 1968, Hogwarts Halls**

Skipping class was something that Rory couldn’t say was new to her, even in the middle of her second month of Hogwarts. The two boys with her would say something different, but today was Marlene’s birthday so Jake and Finn were willing to make an exception.  
The blonde hadn’t particularly asked for anything; in fact she only found out the date of her birthday the week before, but that hadn’t stopped Rory from trying to pull off an… _interesting_ celebration, to the say the least. 

Pertaining to the discovery of new secret passageways, the pair of Gryffindor girls had a harder time accomplishing this than they initially expected. Apparently, the accidental revelation on their first night was out of pure sheer luck; luck that had seemingly all been used up that day because no matter how hard they tried, Rory and Marlene had no such success since. 

Now that Rory was in school where there were strict rules in place, she was happy to say she had the time of her life breaking them. Whether it was staying up after curfew, sneaking food up to the dormitories after meal times or skipping class, such an exhilarating factor in her education made the beginning of her Hogwarts experience all the more memorable. 

Hence when she discovered the perfect opportunity to use her love of rule breaking for a greater cause (Marlene’s birthday), her excitement got the better of her; she even got the 5 boys involved. 

The plan was thus:

During the last lesson of the day (Potions), Zac Laharey, Frank Longbottom and Hercules Sean were going to make Marlene’s life hell. Rory had instructed Zac to inconspicuously spill some ink on her lap and Frank to spoil her potion by adding a pinch of crushed lavender for it to blow up in her face and turn a horrible green colour.  
Now, was this a bit too harsh? Maybe. After all it was her birthday and all they were doing was making her miserable. But all was to come. 

You see, reluctantly, Rory had recently found out about Hercules’s extraordinary talent for potions. Don’t get her wrong, the pair still hated each others guts, but for her plan to work, a very specific potion had to be made. Consequently after a lot of frustrated thinking, she had decided to swallow her pride and ask the jackass for his help. 

It was embarrassing and infuriating, to say the least. However in the end, he agreed on the terms that he too was invited to their secluded event. At first, Rory was very much conflicted. At that point in her planning, the celebration was to only include her and Marlene, but she realised it might be a bit more fun with more people. She obviously wouldn’t be able to cope with Hercules alone, so she told him to invite all the other members of his clique. They could be of possible help too, she guessed. And so they were. 

So while Zac, Frank and Hercules were getting on Marlene’s nerves in Potions, Rory, Jake and Finn were sneaking to the top of the astronomy tower to a closed classroom. How convenient that a classroom was closed for construction the very day of Marlene’s birthday? Very convenient. So convenient that some might be suspicious.

And rightfully so. 

Yesterday, Rory and Jake had snuck into that specific classroom during lunch and used a couple of Rory’s homemade grenades to blow it up completely. Unfortunately, Jake wasn’t so sneaky as the metamorphmagus and had gotten caught by the astronomy teacher. He was now sentenced to 3 hour long detention every Saturday till the end of term. 

Rory had laughed at Jake’s outrage and told him that her apparent talent for sneakiness had evolved over time and experience. The auburn haired boy had just glared at her, but it was evident that the idea attracted him. Rory, on the other hand, was glad that her prank pulling influence was spreading to people other than her roommate. 

So why did they need this classroom unoccupied?

Rory was told by the Prewett twins that when a classroom was destroyed by a student or some other type of accident, the room was immediately repaired the same day, but it was still closed the day after for safety precautions (she wasn’t at all surprised the ginger siblings knew such information, as a matter of fact).

Frank had recommended this room in particular because apparently, it was one of the highest and uncrowded points of the entire school and the windows overlooked the whole castle in all it’s glory. Rory didn’t question how he knew this; it was useful and that was the end of it. 

Right now at this very moment, Rory, Jake and Finn were going to turn this classroom into the best celebration place that a first year with the wildest imagination could muster. 

‘Alright, boys. Let’s get to work!’ 

The two behind her grinned and took the prepared items out of their bags. They all knew that this party could be a lot better with the use of spells, but unfortunately despite some of their arrogance and determination, they were only first years and couldn’t do much of anything charms-wise at the moment. 

The items were mostly shrunken bean bags, left over Christmas lights and board games they found in the common room closets. 

‘_Wingardium Leviosa!_’ 

Rory watched as Finn lifted the Christmas lights with his wand and tried to secure them around the room. 

‘Need some help?’

Distracted, Finn turned to face her, but having lost concentration, the lights fell onto the classroom floor with a thud. Groaning in frustration, the sandy haired boy threw his head back and his mouth formed an amusing grimace. 

‘Yes?’ He smiled shyly and Rory grinned while reaching for her wand from her back pocket. 

‘Come on, together!’ She told him. ‘One, two, three… _Wingardium Leviosa!_’

The string of lights smoothly began to rise from the ground and both students grinned at the result of their hard work in charms. However while the girl was gradually stepping back to get a better view of where they could secure the strings, her foot caught on a small bean bag and sent her flying to the floor. 

The lights followed suit and landed on top of Rory’s head in a mess. 

Laughter erupted from the both Finn and Jake as they witnessed this spectacular show of a failure. 

‘Need some help?’ 

Grumbling, Rory turned her head to meet Jake’s smug face; at the sight of which her hair involuntarily turned spiky red. 

Suddenly, there was an erratic pattern of knocks on the door and all the room occupants grinned in anticipation for their friends’ entrance. Despite them not having finished setting up the lights, everything else was pretty much in place. 

‘_Merlin_, I cannot believe we got detention, Sean! This is all your fault! And on my _birthday_ as well! I bet you didn’t even know that, did you?’

Rory further grinned at the sound of Marlene’s annoyed voice behind the door. The boys must have convinced her that they were here for an after school detention because of her blown up potion.

Then the door swung open.

‘SURPRISE!’ The cacophony of all 4 screaming voices mixed with the wail of ancient party blowers weren’t at all pleasant, but filled to the brim with excitement nonetheless.

Marlene’s eyes shot open to the size of watermelons as she yelped in shock, nearly losing her balance. 

‘_What?_ What is going on?! Oh my Godric!’ The blonde raised her hands up to her gaping mouth, and for a second Rory thought she was going to be angry… but then to her relief, her eyes scrunched up and she doubled over in a fit of giggles. ‘You!’ She pointed at Rory in glee. ‘You said you were sick and had to go to Madame Pomfrey!’

Rory, still with an amusing red hairdo and branched out on the floor tangled in Christmas lights, scoffed good-naturedly. ‘I can’t believe you even fell for that; I never get sick!’

Marlene and the four guys continued their way into the room and looked out the windows. 

‘Wow.’ Said Zac. ‘The view’s amazing!’

Marlene rolled her eyes at him. 

‘Don’t know if you deserve it though, after basically spoiling my potion! Why in the name of hell did you do that for?’

All present first years turned to face her, grinning.

‘What? You quite literally made my potion turn green and made it blow up in my face! Professor Slughorn’s going to really hate me now! This was an end of topic assessment!’ Rory smirked. It was true, the young twenty-something year old professor really did not like Marlene for some reason. As for the end of topic assessment... well, she hadn't actually known that was today... Ah well. It was worth it.

‘Why are you all smiling?! This will ruin my grade!’

‘Marls; Frank and Zac added crushed lavender to your potion.’ Rory began, amused at her best friend’s confusion. 

‘So what?’

‘Crushed lavender amplifies the effects of the harlequin neutralisation effect.’ Frank continued, eyes glistening. ‘I mean, it does turn green and blow up first which isn’t a particularly great side effect… but after about half an hour it turns back to the yellow colour and the potion’s effects are 100% more efficient than before.’

Marlene’s jaw dropped. 

‘You’re going to be Slughorn’s star student, dude!’ Frank exclaimed excitedly. ‘Yeah, I read it in the 'Potions secret hacks’ textbook I got you. Here it is!’ The boy ruffled through the contents of his bag and pulled out a package, which said ‘TO MARLENE’ in big elegant letters. 

The birthday girl’s face broke into a huge smile and quickly enveloped Frank in a big hug. ‘Thanks, man!’ 

The two really had gotten quite close over the past month, apparently. 

Marlene then turned to Hercules with amusement tingling in her expression. 

‘Hm, Hercules… I thought you were supposed to be the Potions buff around here?’

The tall boy licked his teeth and glanced at her and rolled his eyes in an exasperated manner. 

‘Well I did actually make something for you, but now I’m reconsidering it…’ 

Marlene bit her lip and squinted her eyes. 

‘Ooo Hercules Sean?… Got a _gift_? For me?'

‘Come on, Sean. Stop being a dick and take them out of your bag.’ 

Hercules glared at the golden eyed Rory's remark, but set his bag softly onto the ground nonetheless, taking out a cardboard box. 

Everyone except Rory eyed the box curiously. After all, she was the one who told him what to make. 

Clicking his fingers, he carefully reached inside the box and took out a glass vial filled with a perfectly clear substance and held it to the light to see it sparkle. 

‘Wow.’ He murmured to himself; he eyed Rory. ‘I really am talented.’ 

Rory just rolled her eyes. 

‘Whatever. It’s not even that clear.’

Everyone else in the room watched with wide eyes in silence and confusion. 

‘Jesus, just tell us what it is!’ Rory turned back to face Zac behind her, lounged on one of the bean bags. He was usually quite shy and this was actually one of the rare times she had heard him talk; what she noticed was that every time he did indeed speak to anyone, he used very distinct Muggle phrases. She guessed he was a muggleborn. _Well, obviously. _

‘It’s a zero G potion!’ She exclaimed, all her contempt for Sean gone. 

‘A what?’ Marlene just stared at her. 

Rory realised that the person she knew this potion from was Cass, and he was pretty much an expert on magical engineering. 

‘Zero G! Zero gravity—’ She heard Hercules beginning to explain.

‘It’s a potion that makes you float in the air.’ She interrupted, hypocritically snorting at Sean’s attempt at a science lesson. 

‘Oh my Godric!’ Squealed Finn. ‘So we can fly?! All by ourselves?! Even without a broom?!’

‘Yea-h-h-h! Finn’s got it with the right attitude. Who wants a try at flying?!’ 

Explicitly loud cheering echoed in the classroom, something which may have caused some people to worry about them being heard. However, Rory wasn’t nearly as responsible or mature enough yet to dwell on this (she hadn’t yet accepted this herself, this was just her subconsciousness), so they continued to spend the night in this room flying, playing boardgames and basically screaming their heads off. 

Since this day onward, the 7 newbie Gryffindors had become a lot closer. Of course, this friendship didn’t spread to all pairs in the group (Rory and Hercules); their rivalry continued in the same merry manner as it did before. 

The girls, however, decided not to tell any of them about the possibility of multiple secret passages inside the castle; that would remain a card they would both keep close to their chests until very much later in the Hogwarts game of an experience.  
Rory could not keep this a secret from Cass though, and neither could Marlene from her mum; so both of them wrote to their respective people frequently during the term… apparently, the one thing Jacinta McKinnon and Cassidy D’agrel had in common was their obsession with Hogwarts mysteries. 

In fact, Aquarius Faye Black had a very pleasing Autumn term… hardly anyone had given her crap for being the mysterious Black daughter and towards the end of October, there was too much on her mind for her biological family to take residence in her thoughts. 

Everything changed on Halloween.


End file.
